So just like Allee's Sammy, Ralph builds like wild male Quakers too! Those spoons do look a bit heavy... he must have some big muscles under all those feathers .
Eclectus, CAG, BH Pionus, Maximilian’s Pionus, Quakers, Indian Ringnecks, Green Cheeked Conures, Black Capped Conures, Cockatiels, Lovebirds, Budgies, Canaries, Diamond Doves, Zebra Finches, Society F
U2-Poppy(Poppy lives with her new mommy, Misty now) CAG-Jack, YNA, Bingo, Budgie-Piper, Cockatiel-Sweet Pea Quakers-Harry, Sammy, Wilson ***Zeke (quaker) Twinkle (budgie) forever in our hearts
I see Ralph is still putting his silverware set to good use. Sammy would be very impressed with Ralph's project, it has lots more bling than Sammy's ordinary sticks. It's amazing how much weight they can pick up or move or even fly with in relation to their body size.
Dani, I'm not sure about Ralph, but Sammy, my male quaker builds all the time, it doesn't seem to be related to hormone levels at all.
Ralph builds with spoons almost every day; hormones don't seem to be a factor. He just likes to build. He also builds with thin wooden dowels inside his cage-- he arranges and rearranges them, and eventually squawks for me to pull them apart, so he doesn't want to build anything permanent, I guess.
Ralph is pretty strong, and can carry one of the heavy soupspoons in his beak for a long time, while riding on my shoulder. He also once picked up a friend's old-style flip-phone and carried it for several feet before dropping it onto the floor. That was right after my friend decided his phone was safe, since it was certainly too heavy for a little bird to pick up.
There are more than a dozen spoons in the structure in the picture. Ralph will use more when they are available (the supply decreases as the spoons are used and waiting to be run through the dishwasher). The straws were rejected for use in the structure and were just left at the bottom of it, maybe because they're not as sturdy as the spoons and sticks. Ralph brings the sticks over from his cage sometimes to add to his construction project.