Stella the bully

Thomas and I have recently realized that Stella is a bully.  She pushes Max around, seemingly for no other reason than she can.  Several incidents this weekend crystallized this for us.

Episode One:

Max is on the counter, drinking water first out of Thomas's glass:

And then mine:

We love how she puts one foot on the rim of the glass -- as though that would stop us if we wanted to take it away from her!  But, as she was taking a drink, Stella had to fly over and chase her away:

She was not thirsty; she just wanted to ruin Max's fun.

Episode Two:

A few minutes later, Max had flown to Thomas's head and was doing weird things.  Since she's a bit hormonal, this probably had something to do with that.  I just wanted to get some pictures of this and was going to remove her, but my intervention was not necessary.

 The big bully flew in, landing on Thomas's shoulder, and scaring Max off.

Episode Three:

A few minutes after that, Max flew down to the table to solicit head pets.  (Thomas was incredulous -- "You attack my head and then want head pets?")

 Of course, Stella had to fly down to interrupt this as well:

 

Of course we make sure that no one gets injured, but we feel it's best to let them work this out themselves.  If Max seemed stressed out by this, we might have to take a different tactic, but she takes it in stride and doesn't let Stella bother her.  Poor Max -- I'm sure she pines for the days when she was an only bird.