Remembering Phineas at Christmas

This time last year, I posted about our first Christmas without Cagney.  This year, we face Christmas without Phineas.

Phineas

 

In the photo above, the perch he is sitting on is still in the same place in the Villa, in the front doorway.  In fact all is how he left it, so I can easily picture him in all perching spots.  This particular spot reminds me of a specific occasion last summer.

I was out all day & came home after their bedtime.  Bezukhov, Phineas & Dalai were in bedtime positions in the Villa, but because my sitter was still there they were not locked up & their front door was still open.  When Phineas saw me, he sleepily got off his swing & made his way to that perch.  I approached & held my hand out to him.  He regurgitated to my finger.  It was only a quiet, brief session as he was tired, but it made me feel so loved, missed & needed.  That little action by my beautiful little grey man seemed to say, “Where have you been today?  I have missed you.  Here’s some regurgitated seed I have been saving for you.  Glad you are back home.  I’m going back to bed now I have seen you.”

So, this Christmas (& every day in fact) I am thinking of Phineas.  I am also thinking of Cagney & hoping they are having fun together over by rainbow bridge with Atilla, Raspy & Thomas.

 

 

 

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A Windy Day

We have had some windy weather lately.  Here are Bezukhov & Phineas investigating at the window perch:

 

 

 

Bezukhov’s addendum

Last year, Bezukhov wrote an informative post on “How to Avoid Taking Your Medicine” (click here to read it).  This is an addendum to that post.  Apparently, another key method has come to light & Bezukhov wants it documented.  Here is what he has to say:

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Hello millions of followers & fans.  It’z Bezukhov here.

I hope you all found my post on how to avoid taking your medicine helpful.  The first & most important method of avoidance dat I wrote about was to ‘Stay Free And Avoid Kapture‘.  As my human usually traps me in the Manor, my area of ‘staying free’ iz very limited.  Kapture iz, I am most annoyed to say, inevitable.

However, there is another technique dat kan be deployed to seriously undermind the authority of the human: ‘Feet Clamp‘.  This iz where you stay still but firmly clamp your feet around the perch.  It sounds too simple to be effective, but effective it iz.  The human kannot move you away or pick you up.  They kan try to pull you up off the perch but stay strong, & you will go nowhere.

Your human may den have to use their other hand to prise your toes from the perch.  Remember to do The Clamp on the highest perch so your human has to do all this on tiptoe.  S/he will give up soon enough.

I think this technique iz a worthy addition to my original post.  I just had to share.

Whilst I am in a sharing & confiding mood & I have your attention, I would like to give public thankz to my best buddy Cagney.  In the last week or so, he has got increasingly displeased at the way our human harrasses me every 48 hours & has rebelled.  The times when Mama has her hands around me, but kan’t move away as I am clamped to the perch (see above), an impetuous Cagney leans across from his perch & viciously attacks ¹ her hand to get her to let me go.  I am very grateful for his support at such a time.  Thankz Caggers!

I also grudgingly give thankz to Mama for allowing me this platform to express my thoughts & opinions.

Wishing you all plentiful seed.

Over and out. x

Me!

My bruvver from another hen

 

[1] ‘Viciously attacks’ can be interchanged with ‘gently nibbles’ (Cagney has no idea how to bite), onesweetiepea (ed)

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When is a knot not a knot?

Recently I asked myself a searching question:

When is a knot not a knot?

Fortunately, the toyboys helped me come to an answer:

When it is untied.

Those clever boys like chewing on pieces of string.  There is a piece of string holding up their willow perch.  I noticed Cagney & Bezukhov had untied it.   Fortunately I noticed it before the silly boys jumped on the unstable perch.

Now I am always checking that the knot is still knotted.

 

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Hot pink perch

A few months back, I posted that Phinny’s bedtime swing had been damaged beyond repair.  Initially, so Phineas had somewhere to sleep, I gave him the Toyboys’ ttmss swing as they only used theirs sporadically.

Parcel from the US of A

Phineas breaking in the hot pink perch

A manly Phineas on his hot pink swing

Phineas loves his swing

When the new replacement swing arrived, that was slightly different to the old one, I gave it a ‘test drive’ in the Manor.  Both Cagney & Bezukhov completely ignored it.  The next test was in Phinny’s cage.  One day, when he was out & about I replaced the Toyboys’ old swing (I hope you are keeping up with the swing versions!) with the new replacement swing.  However, that did not have as good a reception as I had hoped.  I found Phineas stopped dead in his tracks on the perch next to it (where he then jumps onto it), looking puzzled, confused & bewildered.  I put the old swing back.

It was then time to return to the internet for a proper replacement.  Previously, I had found it online but the cost for postage & packaging was expensive, hence buying the slightly different (& now I know, completely inadequate) one.  I thought I would bite the bullet & pay the P&P costs, but it was out of stock!  Cue another frenzied internet search!

So, I found another swing that looked pretty similar, in the US.  P&P was obviously high for the UK, but was not as high as the out of stock one.  I decided to get it!  Surprisingly, the swing arrived within a few days & with much hope, I opened the parcel….

Fantastic!  It is virtually the same swing!

Oh goodness me!  What a bright, garish, girly PINK!

Well, I knew they would not have a problem with the design & structure…. but the colour?  Even *I* had a problem with the colour!

I checked to see if the old perches could be interchanged with the new one, thereby reducing the amount of pink on the eye, but they were too fat to fit into the gaps.  The new perches would fit the old swing though, so to break Phineas into the new swing (& colour!) gently, I gave him one hot pink perch.  Would he sit on it?

Naturally, the change was made whilst he was out & about.  The first one to notice it was Cagney.  He bounced onto the open door platform, about to go in to eat Phinny’s seed, but looked up at the hot pink, stopped suddenly, then turned tail & flew back to the safety of the Manor!  This did not bode well.

Phineas it seems, is made of sterner stuff though.  He took the new hot pink in his stride, so much so that the very next day the whole of his bedtime swing turned hot pink.  You will see from the photos that he is happy with it.  It also has an extra feature of a little loop on the bottom so I was able to hang some beads in case he wanted to count them to help him sleep.

 

Swing failure

The other day I heard a loud clunk.  When I looked up, Phineas was on the floor of his cage looking a bit confused.

He had jumped on his ttmss swing & the perch section gave way.  Poor boy.  That was his bedtime swing & his all round chill out, best perching position.

I checked his swing to see if it could be repaired in any way, but the plastic hole that holds a side of the perch section had a gap in it.  I decided that a replacement was needed.  In the meantime, I gave him the toyboys ttmss swing.  They do not use their swing nearly as much as Phinny uses his so I thought they would not miss it too much.  Phineas had his bedtime swing back.  He was pleased & order in the universe had been restored.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

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You can see from the photos above that the replacement swing is very colourful.  A perch on the toyboys’ swing had a hairline crack in it so I merged it with Phinny’s swing.

After an internet search I found the same swing but the cost of postage was extortionate.  I decided to go for a slightly different swing.  When it arrived, I put it in the toyboys’ manor.  As yet it has not been touched….

 

Top: new swing
Bottom: broken swing

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Just swingin’

Sometimes, when the toyboys are otherwise engaged, Phineas will tear himself away from monitoring them (mostly Cagney) & have a swing on the swinging perch.  He usually chooses the lower rung to do this.  He may even have a chat with the handsome dude in the mirror.

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Perch positioning

It is important to carefully consider positioning of perches & swings in the cage.  I have made a mistake with positioning of a perch in Phinny’s cage.  Most mornings, I am presented with the following:

Poopy perch

Phinny usually sleeps overnight on the ttmss swing.  As it is just him sitting on it, it dips down quite a bit on one side & it is that angle that often results in a poopy perch below.  Sometimes the ttmss swing shifts along the bars a fraction & that means the poops miss the perch & land on the cage floor, where they are meant to be.

Some more tweaking is necessary for an optimum poop-free perch position.

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A pretend peg

A favourite perch is the wooden peg.  For some time now, years in fact, a peg has been positioned on the inside of the Manor landing platform.  Sitting on it affords good views across the room. Its most attractive feature is most probably that there is only space for one bird to sit on it at a time.  It has been used by all: Atilla, Raspy, Cagney, Bezukhov, Phineas & Thomas.

Thomas sitting on the inside peg

Bezukhov sitting on the peg (during Atilla days)

There is one disadvantage of this peg.  To me, that is.  When the landing platform is lowered, the peg has to be removed as it is redundant & just flops there, taking up space.  During recent turbulent times when the landing platform was raised & lowered many times an hour, it occurred to me there must be a more efficient way to deal with this that could satisfy both myself & the toyboys (current Manor occupants).

Enter The Natural Bird Product Company (http://www.naturalbirdco.co.uk/)

When I broached them about this dilemma, they agreed to make a smaller version of one of their existing designs.  And here it is!

Dinky perch: length 10cm, stem height 6cm

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This new dinky T-shaped perch mimics the qualities of the peg inside the manor but when the landing platform is lowered, turns into a useful perch.  Of course there has been some avoidance of this new perch by Cagney & Bezukhov, but I can say now, a few weeks after its introduction, that it has been accepted, & here is the evidence:

Bezukhov sitting facing outwards

Cagney sitting sideways

Bezukhov sitting on lowered perch

Bezukhov comfortably dozing on one foot on new dinky perch

(Click on photos to enlarge)

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Rope for wood

After the vet visit when Cagney had his long, curly toenails trimmed, I decided to rearrange some of the perches in the Manor.

Given that night time is the time they spend mostly in the same place, I thought it would be a good idea to replace the the bedtime rope perch with a thick willow perch.  I put this diagonally across the loft area.  The round swing was swapped to the other side & the back swing swapped for another.  The chewy toy was simply moved to the opposite side so Cagney can hide behind it whilst sat on the perch.

I hoped these changes would not faze them too much.  That bedtime I found them sat comfortably on the wooden perch.  Since then, one or other of them has also slept on top of the round swing.  So, the bedtime routine is still largely unchanged.

With luck the wooden perch will help to keep Cagney’s toenails down.

Snoozing on the willow perch

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Night night!