Several different people tried to work will Gigi, but he kept ending up back at our rehabber friend’s place until we took him in a year and a half ago.

Gigi bird has a very small vocabulary, consisting of “What’re you doing”, “Sweetie”, “wheee-oooo”, a knocking sound and what I lovingly refer to as his car alarm impression.

When hubby’s brother and brother’s girlfriend come to visit, Gigi bird usually comes out with a whole slew of words we’ve never heard him say before. Then, when they leave, we never hear those words again.

Well, they were over the other night visiting and once again Gigi bird started mumbling something new. We sat there and listened to him for a few minutes when all of a sudden I figured out what he was saying. I clamped a hand over my mouth and shook my head. I met my husband’s eyes and knew I was right.

I was hearing my Gigi bird say F— off over and over.

Just like Ciaran does.

Seems we have a cursing epidemic.

There is nothing quite like the sound of a high octave caw at 7:30 to start your morning.  Just like there is nothing like constant high octave cawing all day to really make a person want to gouge their eyes out.

Ciaran has decided that his high pitched cawing screech is the best noise in the world.  He’s also decided that it’s the best way to let us know that he’s bored, hungry, angry, happy and lonely.

Have you ever heard a sound that made you see stars?  Well, that’s what Ciaran’s noise is like.  After listening to it off and on for, oh, about a month, we finally decided to do something about it. 

Hubby called our rehabber friend to discuss ways of convincing Ciaran this was not the greatest sound in the universe.  So far ignoring him, yelling at him, reprimanding him and pleading with him have not worked. 

Our friend suggested that every time Ciaran made his sound, we do something unpleasant to him.  The only thing he really hates is to be picked up and then flipped over on to his back, so we decided that was the way to go.

 So now every time Ciaran screams his caw, Hubby runs over, throws the cage door open, grabs the screaming crow and flips him over on his back.  Ciaran, of course, tends to yell the whole time. 

Hopefully this will work.  At the very least we’ll have a crow that enjoys being flipped.  At the very worst he will love it so much he will start screaming for it. 

I curse.  Sometimes quite a lot.  As we found out with our first starling, Dufus, birds like to mimic cursing.  Dufus would cuss for hours on end.  His favorite phrase was “For f#@$* sake”, something I didn’t even realize I said until he started repeating it. 

When Einstein came into the house last July, my mother begged me not to “teach” him to curse, like I had spent hours a day sitting in front of Dufus cursing at him so he’d follow suit. A bird says what a bird wants to say, but I told Mom I’d try my best to make sure that Einstein didn’t curse.  At least not as much as Dufus did. 

We’ve had Einie since last July, and so far so good.  He was a late talker and I’m pretty sure he has a speech impediment, but so far nothing has come out of him that sound like a bad word. Ciaran however, is another story.

In case you didn’t know, crows can talk.  And no, you don’t split their tongues.  They are mimickers and can pick up language.  We got Ciaran last June, about two weeks before we got Einstein.  Unlike our other two crows, Ciaran was a chatterer from the get go. He spends hours a day talking to himself, making machine gun noises and sounding sometimes very much like a monkey. 

After a few months of this nonsense chatter, Ciaran greeted us one morning with an enthusiastic “HELLO!”.  I immediately said hello back and so began Ciaran’s favorite game:  answering with hello when spoken to.

We figured it was only a matter of time before he started saying other words and we weren’t disappointed.  About a month later he said his second work.  Or rather words. 

Everyday around 2 pm Ciaran will spend at least 30 minutes yelling f%#@$ off.  At first we weren’t sure that was what he was saying until my Mom commented on it.    Not sure where he picked it up, we decided to ignore it.  Then, one morning at around 6 am as he cawed his head off I yelled “Ciaran f$% off!”

And the light bulb went on above my head.  Apparently I had taught Ciaran to curse.  At least now when Einstein starts, I can blame it on the crow. 

The pent up love isn’t always released in the right direction, either.  My two crows adore me and often coo and spread their wings out for me, which is a sign of severe love. Gigi, our parrot prefers me, but will try to love up on anything.  And Einstein the starling?  Well Einstein is a bit confused.

See, Einie is in love and considers himself in a committed relationship with Stanley.  Who is Stanley, you ask?  Stanley is a fish.

Yes, my starling is in love with a fish.  A loach to be exact.  The two of them stare at each other lovingly and the fish will even try to engage Einie in some play.  Einie will poke and prod at the fish aquarium, desperately trying to figure out how to get at Stanley.

Sure, hubby thinks the bird is trying to eat the fish, but I know different.  Theirs is a love that transcends gender and, apparently species.

I don’t even want to hazard a guess at what their kids would look like.  

Friends sometimes envy me for being able to work from home. They envision long days of concentrating solely on my work, getting oodles and oodles of things done.

Yeah, right.

While it may be a bit politically incorrect, working from home when you have a house full of animals is quite often like working from home when you have kids. Yeah, yeah, I know: my birds are in cages and the dogs have a play room, something that I understand is wrong to do with kids. But with kids, at least when they throw a fit, it is usually one of two things: dirty diaper or hungry.

Wanna come over to my place and try to guess why the parrot, who has a full food dish, fresh water and a passion fruit is screeching his head off? Or why the crow is cawing for an hour straight for no apparent reason? Welcome to my world.

This morning it was Ciaran, our youngest crow. Freshly feed and watered with all of his toys in what seemed like hours. Finally after giving him new toys and treats, I figured out what the issue was: he was lonely.

Yes, folks, crows get lonely and whine for attention. What he wanted was Ciaran Cuddles. Now I could try to explain Ciaran Cuddles, but I think a visual would be much better.

And for those of you who don’t think crows can be affectionate? I dare you to hold on to that way of thinking after watching Ciaran in action.

So, we don’t often have friends over. Our place is pretty small and with all of the animals, it can get pretty hectic.  But last night a couple of friends came to the house for a bit before we all went out to supper. 

Okay, it can get very, very loud in our diggs.  We have four talking birds, and my hubby and I can usually block out a lot of the background chittering and chattering.  It’s cute and we get a great chuckle out of them for the most part, but our birds can make some pretty startling noises.  And one of our friends discovered just how startling.

Sitting peacefully on our couch, playing Wii with hubby, our friend nearly crapped his pants when one of our crows decided to declare his love.  How did he do it?  Well, Buckbeak will just randomly yell “I LOVE YOU!!!!”  at the top of his lungs. It’s quite loud and yes, startling, but it doesn’t fizz us at all, we’re so used to it.  Not the case with said friend. 

He eventually recovered and went back to Wii-ing only to get the bejesus scared out of him two more times by Bucky.  Then Gigi started screeching, adding to the mix.

Good thing we had beer.

Yes, they spend a good chunk of their day staring at me. I don’t speak fish, so I have no idea what they want. I often wonder if maybe my hair is sticking up or my bra strap is showing. Sometimes I stare back, engaging in a human-goldfish staring contest. I never win. Every once in a while I’ll stick out my tongue, but so far I’ve restrained myself from flipping them off.

I know that rabbits supposedly have a brain the size of a peanut, but I think our bunny’s is definitely at least walnut sized. 

Sir Speckles has learned that the best way to get unlimited bunny treats is to bite his enclosure and shake the crap out of it at around, oh 3 am in the morning.  Only way to get him to stop is to give him a handful of treats.  He happily eats them then flops out and goes back to sleep.  Until around 5 am. 

I don’t suffer from insomnia, I suffer from spoiled animals. 

A picture of our starling Einstein when he was just a few days old.  I hand raised him from 6 days.  He’s a lot bigger now and way more independent, but I still consider him my baby bird. 

I must remember to cover Gigi bird well now that the days are getting longer. Nothing like being woken up at 6 am by a horny, screaming parrot that wants his blanket removed, a passion fruit and fresh newspapers to molest. I now have to give him a wide berth when I walk past his cage or he has a tendency to try to eat me.

Trying to find a nice balance of letting him know I love him but not allowing my face to be chewed off.

Here’s to hoping mating season is over soon. I’m thinking next year he’s getting a girlfriend. I’m tired of him showing me his love and affection by trying to eat me or puking in my hair. Regurgitated parrot food is not a good conditioner.