Close-up: Stella

Brian wasn't the only one getting photographed with the new camera. Stella was unsure which camera to look at:Here are the close-ups Thomas took with the new camera:With this one, you get a pretty good view of her latest feathering:
And my personal favorite:

Stella gets me into trouble

Last week, Thomas had called a prescription in to the pharmacy for a friend. He left his pager number with the pharmacy in case they had any questions, but then he turned his pager off since he was not on call.

I asked him if he should turn his pager on, but he said no as they never have questions and if there was a problem, our friend would let us know she was having trouble with her prescription.

An hour or so later, Stella was playing on the counter where Thomas keeps his pager. She threw it to the floor and it turned on. He accused me of turning the pager on and blaming Stella. I'm not sure he yet believes me that I had nothing to do with it!

Max's battle scar

Earlier this week, Max, Stella, and Calypso were on the shower curtain rod after my shower. I had my back turned so I'm not entirely sure what happened, but at the same time Max screamed and flew to the counter and Calypso fell to the ground (softly -- he has all of his flight feathers) inside the shower. Then, about 20 of Max's feathers fell to the ground.

I'm guessing that either Calypso or Stella jumped Max; I'm just not sure why Max didn't fly away in time. (My money's on Stella since Calypso and Max generally get along; I'm just not sure why he fell to the ground during the altercation if he wasn't involved.) No serious damage was done, but Max has a couple of head feathers that will no longer lay straight. We joke that she looks like a short-eared owl, with that feather sticking up, so I've been calling her my short-eared timneh. And now I'm taking even more precautions with my showering to make sure nothing like this can happen again.

This is why I was very hesitant to bring Brian in to our home, and why we are extremely cautious with him so that no accidents can happen. When it's these guys who are about the same size, it's a cautionary tale; with Brian it could have been a tragedy.

Breakfast time

Stella's new morning routine involves dipping almost her entire beak in my blueberry smoothie and then shaking her head so that blueberries stain everywhere.
She has impressive aim!

Stella's explorations

Stella has been exploring so much lately. We keep remembering fondly of when she first came to us and just stayed on her stand. OK, that's not really true, but really, she could calm down a bit!

This morning, Thomas was in the shower and I was in the living room giving the parrots new food. The greys were in the kitchen. I heard something get thrown to the floor, so I ran in to see what it was:Thomas had left part of his lunch on the counter. Stella had opened up the top, thrown the cover on the floor, and then began helping herself to his sandwich:
A few minutes later, I was doing the parrots' waters. Every day I hide wood slices in Calypso's cage. He finds them, brings them to his water dish, and chips them up. I had set his dish on the counter, and Stella immediately came over:
She then started chipping up a larger piece of wood she found: