Pickles The Parrot Returns: My Continued Adventures with a Bird Brain Read Online Free

peel). He’ll eat most grains, rice,
pasta and beans – all cooked. He likes walnuts, pecans and almonds
but pine nuts are his favorite (pine nuts are actually seeds
though) but pine nuts are only given for treat rewards.
    He likes poultry, sometimes beef and will
sometimes eat some lean bacon, the odd time we cook it up but he
rarely gets meat of any kind. Hates seafood. Likes Raisin Bran,
without the raisins – I think he’s convinced it’s mouse turds - and
especially Cheerios. Treats he doesn’t get often but are his
favorites are, Sesame Snaps, jelly beans, sugar cane bark, pudding
and Jello. Obviously, he doesn’t get those things often because of
the high sugar content.
    If you’re wondering about sugar cane bark,
try Googling Kaytee’s Nature’s Benefits Sugar Cane – it’s not only
tasty but it gives a bird something to chew on for awhile. He goes
nuts for homemade pancakes (without butter or syrup), homemade
French fries and pizza crusts. He gets his seeds every couple of
days but will only eat the safflower and the odd pumpkin or
sunflower seeds and his Pretty Bird pellets (the only ones he will
touch) are always available. If I can find the cardamom seeds in
the white shell, he will split the shell in two, cup one half in
his talons and scoop out all the seeds with his beak. He can’t
manage to eat the green or large brown cardamoms without spilling
them when he splits them open. He smells delicious after eating
them and the whole house is permeated with the delightful scent.
He’ll drink juice, sometimes apple, some kinds of orange but mostly
grape. He likes whole wheat or rye toast in the mornings and often
gets oatmeal porridge for breakfast.
    Sometimes Pickles is very fussy about the way
fruits and vegetables are presented to him. One day he wants them
diced, next day he wants a chunk he can hold in his talon. There
were some things that we thought he didn’t like but once offered in
the manner of his choosing, he would eat it.
    Speaking of vegetables, we had invited a
friend over for stir fry one evening and Pickles, who loves company
and didn’t want to be left out, was set on his diningroom boings a
few feet from the diningroom table. We sat our guest, Rick, down
and left him alone momentarily while Neil and I went to the kitchen
to fetch wine and other items. We returned to find that Pickles,
having seen a window of opportunity present itself, had dove to the
table and splashed down, right in the middle of our guest’s dinner
plate.
    Pickles had made a field day out of it by
chowing down with happy flingings of food as he burrowed into the
pile. Rick was leaning as far back as possible but the chair
insisted he remain within less than an arm’s length. His arms were
thrown down and back, leaving his chest and lovely sweater a viable
target. He was frozen in place. Ohhh, he acted like this was the
daily norm for him and that it was no big deal, but his body
language and facial expression clearly betrayed him.
    Neil scooped Pickles up by cupping his chest
and belly – no time for a step-up argument – and carried him out of
the room. Having grabbed talons full of noodles, they sailed
through the air beneath him as he squawked in protest over this
undignified treatment. I could hear Pickles swearing at Neil in the
other room as he plopped him unceremoniously on the top of his cage
and while I nonchalantly picked food scraps from the poor man’s
clothing – remarking, “He never does this.”
It wasn’t really a lie. But only because we
never eat in the diningroom so Pickles never gets the chance to do
it.
    Rick was very gracious about it and even
remarked in his defense, “I was merely confused as I didn’t know if
parrot required salt and didn’t want to offend the hostess.” But it
wasn’t until after he departed that evening that, while clearing
the table, I noticed that we had neglected to remove Neeka’s litter
box, right next to the table and to the right of Rick’s chair.