June 23, 2003: The other day I happened to be staring out the window, trying to decide if the lawn needed to be mowed, and contemplating how long I could get away without doing it. Henry, obviously intrigued, startled me by saying "What do you see?" This is a question I usually ask *him* when I notice him, head tilted, looking intently at something outside. I'm convinced more than ever that his use of language is not without considerable insight as to its meaning. What impresses me most is that he has correctly generalized the usage of certain words and applied them in ways that I have never tried to demonstrate to him. For instance, he began to say 'good' when expressing satisfaction with the way something tastes. It's clear that he learned that from me, since I often used the phrase "Good, it's good" when offering him a treat or some other food to eat. Not all foods provoke that utterance, but his favorites (coffee flavored yogurt, for example) certainly do. Yet that doesn't explain his repeatedly cooing "Good... it's good" when I stop in to cover his cage at night after having been gone for several hours, having missed his normal 'lights out' hour...

September 22, 2003:Henry's been going through a heavy molt for several weeks now; it seems all summer he's been covered with pin feathers. Right now his chest feathers have assumed their normal appearance but many of the new feathers on his head have yet to lose their sheaths. I assume it affects his disposition, but it's hard to tell. Some days he definitely seems more antsy than others, but there's always the chance of getting a reflexive nip if he sees fingers approaching. He still is unwilling to accept the slightest touch without flinching; probably a result of less than gentle handling when he was weaned by whoever bred him. It seems that he has been trying to restrain himself from nipping when I attempt to gently touch him, at least he usually will hesitate to repeat what seems to be a pure reflex action. Though he can't tolerate touching, he is definitely a 'shoulder bird' and begs constantly to be on my shoulder or close by at all times, and seems to enjoy cuddling against the side of my head (which apparently he doesn't feel threatened by).

The latest additions to his vocabulary: "I see Tony", "I see sky". He loves to say "What do you see?" to people and then recite those phrases, which coincidentally are among those he can recite with the most accuracy. He's also started saying "Tony loves you", usually when he's playing alone in his cage. He is definitely less shy about saying things in front of people that he pronounces with the most accuracy; new prhases and words that are difficult for him to pronounce are rarely heard unless he is alone with his mirror. He'll sing 'Twinkle Twinkle' readily when he thinks he is alone, but will merely join in from time to time when someone is singing to him (which he greatly enjoys).

I've noticed too that he almost always speaks in phrases, as opposed to single words, and seems to enjoy varying the emphasis of various words of a phrase just as human speakers often do. It amazes me to hear him combine words in seemingly consistent and correct ways, such as saying "What do I see?" after repeating "What do you see, I see sky" several times in a row.

April 14, 2004:Three years ago this week, Henry was hatched. He's been with me almost 2 and half years--hard for me to believe, sometimes, since his antics have never ceased to amaze me. It has been several months since I added an entry to this diary. When re-reading it, I was struck by the irony that the last entry focused on a behavior trait of his that has significantly changed in the last few months-- Henry now lets me pet him! While that may not impress anyone who owns a cuddly bird, it's a major step for a bird that has never willingly accepted or enjoyed the touch of a finger. I remember reading (a couple of years ago) that with patience and time, a bird's aversion to human touch could be overcome. Sure enough, it has happened with Henry. While he doesn't yet actively seek to be petted, its amazing and gratifying to see him freeze, tilt his head back, close his eyes, and clearly enjoy the touch of my finger gently stroking the top of his head. I imagine that when his next molt arrives with the inevitable itching and discomfort, he may be glad that he let down his guard long enough to feel what he has been denying himself (and me) for such a long time.

October 11, 2004:Henry's summer molt is finally over, and his feathers are looking great. Seems like he has been molting forever (he started around June) but the really heavy part of the molt was over a couple of months ago. Now there are only a few tiny pin feathers left to go. When he's molting I always wonder if he will ever look 'normal' again, and so far he hasn't dissapointed me. I noticed that he also regained his interest in chewing cardboard and paper towel rolls again. He enjoyed that (as well as tearing up oatmeal boxes) tremendously earlier in the spring, but pretty much gave up his 'hobby' all summer. Now he's at it again.

He's still an incredible chatterbox. His favorite verbal game continues to be asking 'What do you see', and he's gradually learning the names of many of the objects in view of his cage. The only ones he actually says are 'water', 'sky', 'Henry', and 'Tony'-- although I can tell which objects he knows the name of because he wil say 'I see' or 'Sss' (the only part of 'yes' that he can pronounce) when I point them out. He's also started saying 'You're so pretty' which he will substitute for the plain vanilla 'You're pretty' compliment when he's in a particularly generous mood.

July 22, 2005:My last entry noted that Henry's summer molt had ended-- well here it is summer again and it's time for another! I can only imagine how much fun it would be to have a bunch of itchy, pointy feather sheaths sticking out all over my body-- a good excuse to be cranky, for sure, but fortunately Henry's mood hasn't notably suffered. He's developed a few coping strategies, one of them is to itch his little head hard enough against his plastic swivel mirror that it pops right off its mount. He also lets me help with the head scratching from time to time. As I noted last year, he's given up his chewing hobby for the summer. This gives me a chance to accumulate empty oatmeal boxes (his favorite item to climb in and chew) for when he starts up again in the fall. Henry's vocabulary is still growing. This past spring he's added (and uses appropriately) "What's wrong?", "What do you want?", and "Let's walk around" to his repertoire. What I enjoy most is hearing him rattle off a list of questions during his all time favorite word game "What do you see?", slightly changing the pattern each time-- for example he'll start off with "What do you see", then adding "What does Tony see?", "What do you see, sky??", "What do I see?", "I see sky, does Tony see sky?" , "What does Tony see, sky??", " I see Tony" etc. I can't take credit for teaching him that behavior-- I wouldn't know how. Somehow he seems to know how the words in a phrase should fit together. Maybe he gets it from the Weather Channel-- the station I usually have tuned in when I leave the TV on for him to listen to when he's alone. Hmm.. that might explain his fascination with the sky.....

October 23, 2005:It's well into Fall, and Henry's molt has been over for quite a while now. In fact, this year it didn't seem to last nearly as long as it has in the past. I noted last October that he was still coping with a few remaining pinfeathers-- this year they were all gone by mid-September. The end result is the same, however-- he's in amazingly fine shape, feather-wise.

Now that I've had a few years to get familiar with his habits, it's somehow reassuring to see him preditcably resume his hobby of cardboard chewing this time of year. Anticipating this, I've kept an empty oatmeal box in his cagetop play area for the last couple of weeks. He's ignored it completely up until last week, when he finally showed interest in checking out its insides as if he had never seen one before. Now he's actively chewing it in most of his spare time. His favorite position for this (since it's on top of the roof of his cage) is to hang from the bottom of cage ceiling and chew the edges as far as poking his beak through the cage top will allow. Whenever he gets a chance to climb into the oatmeal box, he somehow manages to scrape thin layers of the material from its insides into the cardboard equivalent of sawdust. Since I've read that the habit of his species is to nest in the hollows of termite mounds, this seems to be be reasonable behavior. I'm impressed by what he can accomplish with his little beak-- I'd have a hard time scraping such a fine layer even if I used tools. It's also amazing to me to see him pick up a tiny seed, reposition it using only the edges of his beak, strip it of its shell and swallow the contents; all in a second or two, with no sign of difficulty.

I've noticed his flying ability (in spite of the annual flight feather trim) seems to be improving; either that or I'm not trimming his outer flight feathers as aggressively as I used to. I want for him to have some flight ability; for safety's sake if he should tumble from any significant height he needs to be able to manage a controlled flutter to the ground. A couple of times I've seen him be startled by something (one time he was on my shoulder and was surprised by the printer behind me ejecting a page) and take off in perfect flight posture, screeching 'TONEEE! TONEEE!' and flapping his wings furiously... the only clue to having any feather trim at all was the excruciatingly slow horizontal speed that he was able to manage, given all the wing flapping. He doesn't seem to have much interest in initiating exploratory flights on his own, at least so far; his infrequent flights seem to surprise him as much as they do me.

March 1, 2006:It's almost Spring and Henry's fifth hatchday is a little more than a month away. He's been totally occupied lately with his cardboard chewing 'hobby'-- I've never seen him more delighted to see me carry in a brand new oatmeal box for him to inspect and then systematically begin to destroy, bit by bit. He can now take a brand new box and have it reduced to tiny particles in less than 4 days. Because of his preferred technique-- hanging upside down from the roof of his cage, chewing the box (which rests on the cagetop) through the bars-- it's great exercise for him since his muscles are under constant tension. It's a healthy hobby for me, too, since I have to eat so much oatmeal to keep him supplied with boxes... although I just discovered that a pizza box keeps him occupied too...

August 23, 2006:This summer Henry set a record for his fastest molt ever. It began on schedule just about the time he lost interest in constantly tearing up his beloved oatmeal boxes, but rather than persist well into October as it has in years past, he's already down to just a very few tiny pin feathers on the top of his head. I guess I better start eating oatmeal again, in case he decides to resume his hobby earlier this year, as well.

He's taught me(!) a new command-- "Let's walk around!". Or, the way it sounds as he pronounces it, 'Wok wokka wound!'. The first few times he said this I really didn't get what he was trying to communicate to me, but the way he said it (leaning forward on his cagetop perch,begging for attention) finally clued me in-- that and the way he flattered me profusely (saying "you're so good", "Tony so good", etc.) whenever I got the idea and carried him on a brief tour of the rest of the house. It also dawned on me that I would often say "Let's walk around" before picking him up and taking him into another room. Sometimes his tiny voice takes a little getting used to, since it doesn't have a natural human quality, but his intent is very clear.

October 15, 2007:Hard to believe, but more than a year has elapsed since the last entry in this diary. Maybe there are fewer major milestones to record, or maybe too many minor ones... At any rate, just like clockwork Henry heads into fall with a beautiful new set of feathers (and annual flight feather trim, completed last week. Thankfully he accepts toweling readily and it's an easy task to perform.). Just this weekend he's resumed his cardboard box chewing hobby, so I expect to be providing him boxes to destroy until May. He's gotten so efficient and disintegrating them that the stockpile I've saved during the summer will disappear in next to no time. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be interested in chewing up oatmeal boxes anymore-- it seems that this year, only an upside down cereal box positioned 'just so' will do.

Looking back on how Henry has progressed over the last year, the most significant change is how 'conversational' he seems to be in his vocal interactions. Though his vocabulary hasn't increased, he's definitely more creative and deliberate in his use of the words and phrases that he knows. To get my attention, rather than squawk 'like a bird' he invariably calls me by name repeatedly first. Only when he realizes that I'm out of earshot (or purposely ignoring him) will he resort to contact calls, and if that fails of course he'll begin a chorus of bird talk, periodically inserting the phrases 'what's wrong? what do you want?' for emphasis. As soon as I reply, he's back in full 'human talk' mode-- asking a question ('what do you see?'), making a request ('lets walk around', 'want some water' ,'let's sing!') or a declaration ('I see sky', 'you're a good boy', etc.).

Though most of Henry's vocalizations are in perfect context, there is one specific phrase he uses ambiguously-- as he uses it, it has one of two meanings. That phrase is "Want some water!", and as Henry uses it, either it means that he is thirsty, or, oddly enough, the alternate meaning is he wants to be put back into his cage to go to sleep. It's one of the very first complete phrases that he learned, and it never fails to get a reaction from me (or anyone who he says it to). I gradually learned the second non-intuitive meaning from the times when he failed to drink the water he seemed to be asking for, usually late in the afternoon before being taken to his cage to be 'tucked in' for the night. Now that I think about it, his usage of the phrase in this way does make sense-- if I happen to be out of the house and miss his normal 'lights out' hour, I'll invariably stop in his rooom to cover his cage, and often I'll hear his little voice say 'want some water' which I dutifully fetch-- and he gratefully accepts before returing to his sleeping perch for the night. It's not hard to see how he would learn to associate his request for a drink of water with the end of his day-- and to expect me to make the association also.

June 24, 2008:Summer is here, and just like clockwork Henry has put aside his box chewing hobby to concentrate on molting a new set of feathers, having pulled out his first long tail feather on May 15th. He had become unbelievably effective at reducing an empty cereal box to a pile of tiny cardboard bits in less than a couple of days-- I'd never seen him so focused and efficient (and I had never eaten so much cereal in an attempt to keep up with the demand). Now there's a half-chewed cereal box perched on the top of his cage, fully ignored while he again shows interest in batting his toys around.

While his vocabulary hasn't grown much in the last year (he's added "Tony's sleepy!"-- I wonder where he got that from? He must hear "Tony's busy!" a *lot* more often) his constant chatter makes use of just about every word or phrase he's picked up. He still impresses me with his grasp of conversation and the clever ways he arranges the words he knows (example: "I love you SO pretty"). Also striking is how unmistakably he recognizes when I am trying to teach him something, whether it is the name of a new object or the taste of something nutritious that he suspects might not be good to eat...

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06/24/08 12:52