Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present....

[TiredOldMan]

Tiny Terrorist!

I love it

 

[LaManuka]

Uncle Major TOM, it’s a good thing Lilly is so tiny, any bigger and I can’t imagine how dangerous she’d be!

And Uncle Anansi, the only thing she loves more than her new cargo net is watching the movie of herself playing on it when I show it to her on my phone. She goes absolutely nuts for that, I gotta try and get a video of it!

 

[LaManuka]

I have the distinct impression, based on behaviour over the last few days, that HRH the Crown Princess Lilly Pilly may be experiencing her first flush of hormonal behaviour!

Given that she is now 9 months old and has moulted out a lot of her juvenile feathers, including previously clipped flight feathers, she is pretty much smack bang of an age where her species would come into puberty. She is uttering the most plaintive, repetitive call, a LOT, and trying to burrow into anywhere dark and/or shadowy, like between my back and the cushion on the couch, and bites me if I try to push her away. I had to go to work today and leave her dadda to babysit - I asked for a situation report at lunch time and the response was "she's out of control!!"

The official breeding season of the purple-crowned nutcase is apparently August thru to December... that's gonna be a looooooooong six months! YIKES!!!!!

PS... we never had this kind of trouble with Sludge, he would just shag everything and be done with it.... \o/

 

[ChristaNL]

PS... we never had this kind of trouble with Sludge, he would just shag everything and be done with it.... \o/

You made me laugh SO hard about that!
( ...more tea up my nose. I should know better than to drink tea and read your contributions to this forum at the same time )

 

[LaManuka]

Well, we have so far lowered her calorie intake by cutting out honey and stewed fruit from her diet, as per a suggestion from her doctor. The insane behaviour has decreased a bit, she’s still a maniac but a tiny bit less so. She goes to bed with the sun but wakes up with the sun too (lots of rain predicted here for tomorrow so I’m hoping for plenty of cloud cover in the morning!)

This morning I had her in the kitchen while making breakfast, I poured out a cup of dry oats into a Pyrex dish ready to make porridge and before I could stop her she jumped in and started eating, thankfully BEFORE I poured milk in! She has now been banished from the kitchen due to washing up water/gas flames etc etc ... she just moves too fast and could get herself into so much trouble!

 

[ChristaNL]

sorry, my brain went


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAXX73HEXXs"]Flashdance... Maniac - YouTube[/ame]


translating your lovely little princess to "human"

 

[Anansi]

Christa, I personally approve quite heartily of your brain's choice of visual destination, as mine often finds itself there as well. (Or better yet, the updated J.Lo version. But I digress...)

The dreaded hormones for Crown Princess Lilly, eh? Ouch. I guarantee that your body language reading skills will triple by the end of this year! No incentive like watching for those maniacal mood shifts.

 

[LaManuka]

As mentioned earlier, HRH La Principessa has been quite the mental case lately and running both hubby and me ragged trying to keep up! Today I thought I'd pop out and see if I could find her some native blossoms to expend some of that energy on, despite it not really being native flowering time here right now. Happily I found a bottle brush tree in a local park that had some fairly decent looking flowers and they've been keeping her busy for a good hour now! Peace at last!

 

[LaManuka]

Well I just had the fright of my life with HRH! I was dopey enough to think I could pop out the back yard to grab a few things off the washing line while holding her in one hand. Of course a local bird let off a random alarm call and Lilly slipped out of my hand & took off. Quick as a flash she had a squadron of noisy miners and butcherbirds in hot pursuit! I am extremely unfit but took off after them anyway into a neighbours yard but couldn’t find her. The last I saw of her was being chased over another fence and I thought “well that’s it the butcherbirds will get her” and I dragged myself back into the house to put a notice on Parrot Alert, call my vet to let them know, maybe make up flyers for a letter box drop etc etc.

While my computer took it’s sweet time booting up I thought I’d take another look around the back yard. I called out for her and swore I could hear her tiny “peep” coming from next doors yard. I chased over there where there’s a stand of big trees in the yard and I could hear her peeping from somewhere around the base of a tree. The clever girl, she had almost completely buried herself in the leaf litter under the tree and was perfectly still, trying to hide from the predatory birds! I scooped her up and held her tight all the way home, I wasn’t going to let her slip away again!

Anyway she is perfectly fine and doesn’t have a scratch on her! But no more outdoor excursions for her she is STRICTLY an indoor bird from here on in, although I must say I’m hugely impressed at her survival skills in thwarting our local butcherbirds, they have eyes like lasers and very rarely let an easy meal get away!

 

[Scott]

Oh no, what a scare and testament to Lily's survival skills. So now it is house arrest for HRH! Glad this had a happy ending!!

 

[LaManuka]

Don’t you worry Scott, the only way HRH is getting out of the house now will be in her travel cage! I’m still amazed that I got her back, and I definitely think the God Of Small Things With Wings was watching over both Lilly and Ellen’s Bowie since they both seem to have survived a close call at virtually the same time.

I popped into my vet’s office that afternoon and picked up a new toy for her, it’s one of those hanging cargo net things and she loves it. Not that she’s spoiled or anything you understand...

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Mesdames et Messieurs, permettez-moi de vous présenter……

La Couronne Princesse Lilly Pilly !

(which is fancy schmancy Francaise for) The Crown Princess Lilly Pilly!!!

Ok people so I have been keeping a little something under my hat for the last 3 or 4 weeks. Which is not hard as she is a purple-crowned lorikeet, only about 5 inches long and weighs 44 grams ! Meaning she is slightly bigger than Bumble but not by much! We got our little Crown Princess on 28 October and I wanted to wait until all her blood test results were back before I introduced her to you all. We have named her "Lilly Pilly", or "Crown Princess Lilly Pilly" cos I figure the smaller the bird, the longer the name has to be. Or if her behaviour is particularly haughty she gets called "La Principessa".

We got her from a breeder about an hour from where we live and unfortunately she got off to a bit of a rough start. She and her fellow nestlings were hand-raised but were weaned at least a month or more before we got her, and spent the intervening time left to their own devices in an outdoor enclosure, meaning she had reverted to pretty much aviary or even wild status, which purple crowns will quickly do. Therefore after the breeder took quite a while trying to catch her, and by the time we drove her home she was utterly traumatised and completely stressed out, the poor little mite. She spent probably the first almost 3 weeks of her life here being totally terrified of me, and let me tell you winning over a frightened tiny little bird like her with the attention span of a lentil and who does not respond to the normal bribery of sunflower seeds etc is no easy feat! I have really never had to hand tame a baby before, all my previous birds had pretty much come tamed and ready to go so this was a huge challenge for me! But after about 2 and a half weeks of sitting by her cage in HUGELY uncomfortable chair and reading to her, offering her eucalypt flowers and fruit to eat, playing YouTube videos of other purple crowns to her and slowly enticing her to get a little closer, she finally worked it out for herself and started jumping on my shoulder 😊 From there she has not looked back.

If anything I now have the opposite "problem" (if you can call it that !) Lilly has become totally Velcro bird. Her default position is on my shoulder, usually flipped on her back getting a skritch or having her feet tickled. She would stay there all day if I let her (and she has !) Poor hubby doesn’t get his dinner cooked half the time now because she will not let me leave the couch (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it !) Fang has had a go at her a few times and although she is a third of his size she does not back down. Fortunately Fang is pretty well behaved mostly and they are well supervised so nothing ever gets out of control. Being a lorikeet and on a high-octane nectar diet she is non-stop, go go go, completely manic and hyperactive until pretty much bang on sunset when she puts herself to bed and starts preening and making squeaky-wheel noises and goes to sleep. Now I am perfectly happy to be a lounge-lizard and play with her all day long (apart from her regular midday snooze time !) but I do have to occasionally, oh i don’t know, go to work, go to the loo, have a wash, make dinner… just sometimes right ?! Currently she loves me a lot more than her dadda, which makes her a lousy judge of character, but I am working on that because at some point I will need a break !

Anyway she and Fang went for wellness checks about 2 weeks or so ago, and Lilly had her psittacosis and PFBD blood tests and happily both are negative (phew !!!) It now transpires however that poor old Fang has a heart arrythmia. The vet did not seem overly concerned about that, just said to watch he doesnt exert himself or start to accumulate fluid around his rear or his legs and we will check him again in a few months. Could also just be the stress of this new spoiled brat in his midst ! Fortunately Lilly conks out at just on sunset which gives Fang some valuable "adult" time in the evenings, especially with his dadda whom he loves to bits.

Anyhow folks that is the story of our new Crown Princess. She is a little hard to get good photos of because she is so hyperactive but I will post more when I get some. Please make her feel welcome because I have a feeling that if you don’t she will jump right thru your screens and "play" attack you with her fuzzy little feathers fully fanned out and beak and claws ready to strike (it's so cute when she does that - lucky she is so tiny or she’d be dangerous !) Love you and your "big bird" attitude little Lilly Pilly !:smile015::smile015::smile015:

I just got done,reading this thread ENTIRELY! Yep! ALL 91 posts!

The first picture of Ms Lilly Pilly..you know...the SIDEWAYS one? The look in her eyes, I immediately saw mischief!! And after finishing reading,I was correct in my assumption lol.
Many years ago I took a trip to Tampa,Florida,to visit an old friend for a couple weeks and our first adventure was to the Tampa Zoo There they had a huge enclosed aviary with what seemed like a bazillion Lorikeets residing. Before entering the enclosure you could purchase a little paper cup filled with necture for 25 cents. I didn't even manage to get both feet into the enclosure before I had twenty or so Lori's all over me! On my head,three on each shoulder,four on my hand holding the cup,a couple clinging to my pants leg lol..BUT as soon as the necture was gone,so were the birdies clever little things lol. The colors on those creatures were dazzling! And FAST! zooming from one poor slob to the next! I think in the two weeks I was there,Carol and I went back four times,just to see those little darlings :07:

So...does Lilly have a call? Warble? Is it a song or just random notes? Can she "speak"? She is strikingly beautiful! I know when the poop it's...ummmm..messy??? Is it often?

I think RB should have a chat with RK...he may just have found a new "entertainer" at the GentleRoosters Club..then again,that D.O.B. ( dirty old bird?) may want her for himself!


Jim

 

[LaManuka]

Lilly says to say “Thank you uncle Jim”

HRH has very definitely ensconced herself in our home and in our hearts since her arrival. It’s certainly fair to say our household now revolves completely around her! My hubby aka MrLaurieKeats is on a week’s leave from work at present and to be honest he’d probably get more relaxation if he was at the office - I go to work and she immediately goes into overdrive looking for me all over the house! I got a message from him today that read “Lilly has been murder all morning!” She is hyper hyper hyper unless she’s asleep, all of which is extremely cute but she sure does keep us on our toes.

As for the types of calls she makes, you probably heard a lot of them yourself when you were at that bird park. Most of the Aussie lorikeets sound very similar although the purple crowns have a high pitched little “peep” sound as a contact call. Lilly also has a throaty gurgly sound she makes when she’s getting stuck into her eucalypt flowers or is otherwise enjoying herself.

Lilly will be one year old on 1 July (where has the time gone?!). We will probably be as crazy as she is before much longer but we love her to bits - we are pretty much her servants now and we are ok with that

PS Please see The Rickeybird Scrapbook for Lilly’s response to the Rb’s recent marriage proposal - unfortunately for him it was not good news ...

 

[LaManuka]

Ok folks, THIS is the sort of thing we have to endure when we try to make breakfast if Lilly is around. Suffice to say she rarely gets into the kitchen.........

 

[LaManuka]

Today is HRH Crown Princess Lilly Pilly's first birthday! At least on Australian Eastern Standard Time it is

I have been authorised to release the following short video in celebration. The vision itself is pretty lousy but you can hear her making her cute little throaty gurgle that she makes when she is enjoying herself (or when she's up to no good which is most of the time!)

So Happy Hatchday Lilly Pilly, you little toad, you tiny terrorist, your mummy and daddy love you to bits and pieces!

 

[Inger]

Happy hatchday, Lilly! Your happy noises got the attention of Ms. Bumble.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rozalka]

Happy Hatchday, Lilly!! Enjoy your special day! Whish Natalka (aka Rozalka) and Zenek

Ps. Today also is 3rd Zenek's gotchaday

 

[LaManuka]

Thank you for your well wishes, and happy gotcha day to you Natalka and my favourite Polish nephew!

 

[Scott]

Happy Hatch Day Lilly!!!

 

[LaManuka]

Lilly says to say “thank you Uncle Scott!”

She certainly is a force of nature our Lilly. She brought love and laughter back into my life during a very bleak time and I don’t know where I’d be without my fuzzy little whirlwind!