I haven't posted much lately, I've been very busy with work and life and blah blah blah. Unfortunately, it means that the birds haven't had as much freedom as they had before but the budgies entertain themselves and I try to give Coyote plenty of scritches every evening.

Cloud, my lone female budgie, is in breeding condition I guess because her cere is huge and brown and frankly, well, gross looking. Ha! Does she pay the boys any mind? No, this is Cloud we're talking about. Her love affair with the cage bars continues daily at a, uh, furious pace.

Waffles and Ninja, my two boy budgies, well their bromance is still going strong and true. Waffles like to sing and bob his head to random inanimate objects, shiny or not (today it was the mineral block/cuttle bone he was wooing). Ninja just fluffs out and sings to hear his own voice.

They're cute and funny and it's interesting watching how they are so much more coordinated and agile than Coyote. They hop around the inside of his cage like it's nothing, while Coyote is so careful about switching perches and he will climb everywhere instead of hopping from perch to perch like the budgies do. I know it's due, in part, to his larger size in relation to everything but I also just think that the budgies have more dexterity than he does. Is this true for those of you with both budgies and cockatiels? He's much, much more agile while flying though. The budgies are stupid (don't tell them I said that) and will do stuff like fly into a wall or try to land on the cat and so on.

Coyote is in full on molt mode at the moment and feathers are absolutely everywhere. So his Waffles and since he's an English budgie, he has a lot more feathers to lose during a molt than Ninja or Cloud. I always just dump out the under-grate part of their cages in the back yard and now it's starting to look like a hawk has had several meals of budgies and a cockatiel out there right now, with all the feathers floating around in little drifts with the breeze.

I really need to teach Coyote some new songs. He has "If you're happy and you know it bang your beak on things like this!" down pat, along with the whistley part of "Sitting on the dock of the bay" (plus wolf whistle and the cab call whistle). I was trying to whistle "Like a Virgin" because I thought that would be a funny song for him to know but it's harder to whistle over and over than the other two songs, so I need something else.

We have a little cork board at work where we put up pics of our pets, which is always a welcome distraction conversation for most folks when they're about to go through an uncomfortable procedure. I finally put up a pic of me scritching Coyote and everyone agrees he's super cute. Only room for one picture, so Coyote is the one that made the cut (shhhh, don't tell all my other pets!).

My cat continues to look older and act older as every day passes. I spoke with someone recently who had a cat that lived to 27! Syrus, my cat, is 18 and he's an elderly man, there is no way he'll make it to 27. He still has way more good times than bad though, so there is no talk of the "E" word yet, which I'm grateful for.

My pooch, Davey (aka D-dawg, aka double D aka D), is my little shelter poodle and he's doing great, barking furiously when the neighbors dare to park in their carport and such. Thanks, D, it's so very important to know the exact moment my neighbor gets home! Other than the barking, he's more of a cat than my actual cat nowadays. Snoozing in all the spots Syrus can't get to anymore and such. I have no idea how old he is since he was at least 5 when we adopted him, according to the vet, and we've had him for 6 years. He does not act like an old man though, so I think we have plenty of years ahead of us with him. Today, Coyote landed on him by accident and D is such a good boy, he knows the birds are off limits and sat quietly until I scooped Coyote up.

Kevin, the pond turtle, got mistaken for a rock earlier this week as my husband was re-arranging stuff in the pond. I don't know how she felt about that, I don't speak turtle.

The koi (some have names, like The Monster who is the largest and so on) are koi. They will eat food from your fingers if your brave enough, like my son, but not me. Having their mouths suck in my fingers is just, ew, no, it icks me out and gives me the major willies. There are also some albino minnows and they do whatever minnows do.

And so sums up my super long post on every single pet we have. I know, it was a thrilling read. You are welcome.

There's no doubt that you love all your animals! Your menagerie is bigger than I realized.

Budgies are a lot more energetic than cockatiels and it shows in the way they do basically everything. They like to get from here to there fast, not the slow and stodgy way that tiels tend to move.

enjoyed reading your post.. you certainly do have a number of pets... that's lovely I recon'

My cockatiels are starting to molt too. There's already a huge mass of feathers everywhere. I like the way cockatiels go from perch to perch. My Levi walks like a macaw.

Thanks all! B, I don't mind the way he moves around, it's just interesting in how different it is from the budgies. He's much more cautious and seems to lose his balance more than the budgies who just hop and flap around like little acrobats.

Coyote had his first night fright last night. It was awful. He lost all of his primaries on one wing and he lost a blood feather, but upon inspection of the feather itself, it appears it came out whole so I put some pressure and corn starch on it and he's fine. He also lost a couple of smaller feathers on his other wing as well. It was a little traumatic for the both of us but he's eating and drinking fine this morning. I gave him a little gatorade in his water and birdy bread with lots of the egg stuff in it for feather growth and protein in it this morning.