Budgie Relationships
Keeping up with the livestock: that was a large part of Memorial Day.
The bees, for one thing; got into the hive and found them well and good and raising children. We added another floor to their house. Gave them more room to move in. Rejoicing all round.
Then, the budgies. They have awfully small brains, to be as complex as they are. Since they're flocking birds, they like, nay, require company, so we always have two. But about a month ago, when Welkin died, Sunny acted like a widow whose new-found freedom had gone to her head and caused her to take a trip around the world and spend too much money on entertainment. She played on the plastic rings, which she had never done. She threw gravel out of the gravel bowl, with apparent glee. She sang and sang and sang.
I began to wonder if she hadn't taken out an insurance policy on Welkin, whom she'd never seemed fond of anyway, and had done her in herself.
But then we noticed that she'd started spending a lot of her time on the floor of the cage right where Welkin had keeled over, and was pecking at the spot as if she was trying to dig Welkin up. (Which she can't do, since Welkin's out under the oak tree.)
Well, that did it. After we took care of the bees, we went and bought another budgie, who hasn't been named yet. And Sunny, who never acted like a regular budgie -- never really buddied up with poor dear dead departed Welkin -- REALLY LIKES the new bird, and has been doing tricks on the plastic rings and throwing gravel on her.
What is this gravel business, anyway? Do the budgies in Australia throw dirt on each other as part of the ancient courtship rituals of their kind? Or is this behaviour a product of the Cage Environment?
They've gone to sleep for the evening, at any rate. I'm off to knit.
The bees, for one thing; got into the hive and found them well and good and raising children. We added another floor to their house. Gave them more room to move in. Rejoicing all round.
Then, the budgies. They have awfully small brains, to be as complex as they are. Since they're flocking birds, they like, nay, require company, so we always have two. But about a month ago, when Welkin died, Sunny acted like a widow whose new-found freedom had gone to her head and caused her to take a trip around the world and spend too much money on entertainment. She played on the plastic rings, which she had never done. She threw gravel out of the gravel bowl, with apparent glee. She sang and sang and sang.
I began to wonder if she hadn't taken out an insurance policy on Welkin, whom she'd never seemed fond of anyway, and had done her in herself.
But then we noticed that she'd started spending a lot of her time on the floor of the cage right where Welkin had keeled over, and was pecking at the spot as if she was trying to dig Welkin up. (Which she can't do, since Welkin's out under the oak tree.)
Well, that did it. After we took care of the bees, we went and bought another budgie, who hasn't been named yet. And Sunny, who never acted like a regular budgie -- never really buddied up with poor dear dead departed Welkin -- REALLY LIKES the new bird, and has been doing tricks on the plastic rings and throwing gravel on her.
What is this gravel business, anyway? Do the budgies in Australia throw dirt on each other as part of the ancient courtship rituals of their kind? Or is this behaviour a product of the Cage Environment?
They've gone to sleep for the evening, at any rate. I'm off to knit.
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