- Dec 18, 2013
- 22,301
- 4,212
- Parrots
- Maya (Female Solomon Island eclectus parrot), Jolly (Male Solomon Island eclectus parrot), Bixby (Male, red-sided eclectus. RIP), Suzie (Male cockatiel. RIP)
The other day after a long training session, (flight with Jolly, harness training, turning on command and swinging upside down from my fingers for he and Maya both) I took them upstairs so that I could weigh them. (For some unfathomable reason, I still have their weight scale upstairs.)
On a side note, Jolly has gone through a growth spurt and now weighs around 385 in the mornings! He was around 340 when I first got him. The increased weight has not affected his flying in the least, as his wings have only continued to grow stronger.
Anyhow, back to the point of this thread! After weighing them, as I began walking down the steps, both Jolly and Maya started getting a bit antsy. I stopped and looked, but there was nothing I could see that might be freaking them out. So I spoke soothingly to them and both relaxed a little.
So I resumed my walk down the steps... at which point Jolly and Maya let out piercing (and seemingly telepathically coordinated) screams and shot from my hands in furious streaks of red and green! Once they'd cleared the stairwell, their paths diverged (again in freakish unison) and landed atop couches on opposite sides of the living room.
Huh?!?
Now, those of you who have read my threads know that, while Jolly flies about as readily as he breathes, Maya rarely does so... despite my continued attempts to encourage her. So I knew something must have seriously spooked her. But what?
The curtains were drawn, TV was off, the kids were in their rooms, and my wife was in the family room getting her Jillian Michaels workout on. So I was perplexed. I recalled that they seemed particularly focused on the wall to my right, so I started looking around for an insect or something. (Though an ekkie would be more likely to eat an insect than run from it!)
And that's when it hit me!
The light was shining from the left, and was throwing my shadow across the wall to the right in rather stark and menacing chiaroscuro! Hahaha!
Now, we've made that trip any number of times before and a few times since, so I don't know why my nutty ekkies chose just then to become terrified of their shadowy counterparts. But it was the weirdest thing. They wanted no parts of the stairwell for the rest of that night, but by the next all fences had apparently been mended with the denizens of the shadow-realm. They haven't even batted an eye at their shadows in the nights, since.
Weird.
Anyone else ever experience this?
On a side note, Jolly has gone through a growth spurt and now weighs around 385 in the mornings! He was around 340 when I first got him. The increased weight has not affected his flying in the least, as his wings have only continued to grow stronger.
Anyhow, back to the point of this thread! After weighing them, as I began walking down the steps, both Jolly and Maya started getting a bit antsy. I stopped and looked, but there was nothing I could see that might be freaking them out. So I spoke soothingly to them and both relaxed a little.
So I resumed my walk down the steps... at which point Jolly and Maya let out piercing (and seemingly telepathically coordinated) screams and shot from my hands in furious streaks of red and green! Once they'd cleared the stairwell, their paths diverged (again in freakish unison) and landed atop couches on opposite sides of the living room.
Huh?!?
Now, those of you who have read my threads know that, while Jolly flies about as readily as he breathes, Maya rarely does so... despite my continued attempts to encourage her. So I knew something must have seriously spooked her. But what?
The curtains were drawn, TV was off, the kids were in their rooms, and my wife was in the family room getting her Jillian Michaels workout on. So I was perplexed. I recalled that they seemed particularly focused on the wall to my right, so I started looking around for an insect or something. (Though an ekkie would be more likely to eat an insect than run from it!)
And that's when it hit me!
The light was shining from the left, and was throwing my shadow across the wall to the right in rather stark and menacing chiaroscuro! Hahaha!
Now, we've made that trip any number of times before and a few times since, so I don't know why my nutty ekkies chose just then to become terrified of their shadowy counterparts. But it was the weirdest thing. They wanted no parts of the stairwell for the rest of that night, but by the next all fences had apparently been mended with the denizens of the shadow-realm. They haven't even batted an eye at their shadows in the nights, since.
Weird.
Anyone else ever experience this?
