OK, enough with the kittens. I’ve had it up to here with puppies. It is time for the Dopers who are also life support units for birds to squawk.
Here is a photo of me and Onan, my Africa Gray Congo. Five hundred grams of beak, claw and feathers, and a barrel of laughs.
Who else out there keeps birds?
I love Greys. They have so much personality. I, alas, have only your garden variety cockatiel (can’t post pics, sorry). He’s a squatter. Dropped on my head in my backyard and wouldn’t go away. His name is now “Buddy” and he’s a real character. Talks up a storm, whistles the Mayberry theme and loves to pluck my arm hairs. Crusty as hell but I’ve grown fond of him.
My wife and I have a female albino cockatiel named Angel. While I’m at work, my wife says that Angel constantly talks to her. (By “talking” she means whistles and chirps.) When I get home, she whistles a few loud "hello"s to me until I take her out of her cage. From that point on she basically quiets down and snuggles against my neck and preens my whiskers. She’s a very loving bird and my wife and I couldn’t be happier with her.
Oh, I wish I had a pic of Charlie Bird to post! Suffice to say that he looks pretty much exactly like your bird, Paul! He’s super cute (although I don’t get my face as close to him as you can do with Onan…he is very attached to my husband, and I am still not his favorite person (although in the last 7 years since he came to live with us, he has warmed up to me considerably!)
He yells a lot for my husband & his brother (“Nick! Time to wake up!” “Phone for you!” “Close the back door!”), and sounds remarkably like my mother-in-law. He also tells the cat to get off the couch (the dogs in their house growing up were not allowed on the furniture). He hasn’t started to say my name yet, but he does imitate my laugh very well.
Here’s me and one of my large birds.
I don’t think I can quite qualify it as a pet, even though I do find him intelligent and friendly, because he is going to end up as dinner.
“Smarty”, the bird, is a domestic Eastern Wild Turkey.
I don’t have birds, but I gotta say I love the name. Onan, what a great name!
As soon as I get home from work, I’ll post pics! I’ve long been meaning to start a bird pic thread - kudos to **Paul ** for finally starting it!
Those run around wild here and I always do a double-take when I see one. Prior to moving to central NC the only turkeys I’d ever seen live were those white ones that will be showing up at the grocery stores in a couple months. Neat birds, the wild ones.
I love birds. Alas, I don’t have any right now. I may be able to hunt up a picture of Kyoko, my white-cap pionus that I had for a number of years. I’ll see when I get home.
Probably so named because he spills his seed on the ground.
Murphy is 290 grams of talon and terror, King of the Jardines parrots! Dominator of cardboard! Destroyer of doorframes! Impersonator of fire alarms!
That turkey’s totally cool.
Here’s a very fuzzy picture (that’s what you get with a $7 kid’s digital camera) of my Beepers, Bogie and Bacall.
Sadly, last week I entered my kitchen and found poor Bogie lying flat on his back at the bottom of the cage, pining for the fjords. I miss his incessant beeping. Bacall still beeps, but she doesn’t sing like Bogie did. She’s lonely, but I’m not sure if she’ll take to another mate or not.
Marlitharn-- little zebra finches? Looks like you took that with a pinhole camera with special film that records LSD trips. . .
Yay, birdies!
If only I knew how to post pictures! I will ask my husband if can help
My birds are Zahzoo : a rescued Congo Grey that looks like Onan, with a stupid look on his face. Glossy, blank eyes and a tendency to let his mouth hang open. He is a good talker, nervous, panicky, cuddly and gentle. He hardly ever even tries to nip, and when he tries nip, he tends freak out, scream like a girl and fall over. " YYEAAAGHK! floppity thud" Zahzoo takes offense if strangers come over while he is bathing
Next is Steve Yzerman, a huge Timneh Grey, He looks like Onan, but with a young Marlon Brando gleam in his eyes and 5 0’clock shadow. He is a really good talker who chooses not to talk. He is faster than a snake, but never ever bites anyone but my husband, who is also Steve’s favorite person. Steve enjoys watching hockey, having his skull sung into like a microphone, kisses,and when no one is watching, he enjoys being held up to your (closed) mouth, whereupon he stretches his neck out so you can hold him sideways against your mouth and go “WAAAhwwoooYAAAAAAAAGHH” and he accompanies you with similar sounds. This is the Parrot Kazoo. Steve is too dignified to do this in public.
I used to have George the mitred conure. He was much more odd then the Greys. He recently died of cancer. I miss him horribly. He had a voice like walking face-first into a Chinese gong. He was the toughest bird my Vet had ever seen
I regret I cannot see pictures of the turkey from August West. That site is blocked here.
I am trying to tidy up the house by teaching Onan to eat in his cage. He his refusing however and whines until I hand-feed him. This is not accomplishing the purpose.
Onan is very loving. He likes kissing me, sticking his beak into my mouth as far as possible. He often does this while I am playing with the computer. He sits on my chest and sticks is head in. I suspect I do not present the most dignified picture when he does this.
I have cats, birds and a dog so I can participate in all the threads!
I just have Quaker parrots right now but I have had Zebra finches, button quail, budgies, lovebirds, cockatiels, conures and a Pionus parrot (I had to sell it when money got tight).
I didn’t really name my Quakers, except one, his name is Fuggin. He’s a little crazy. He’s fuggin nuts!
My wife and I have an overly friendly parakeet. He thinks my wife is his Ho. He flys around the house when we let him out and will eventually find the wife and pester her incessantly.
He can say a few words and will also do a “Boomhauer” kind of gibberish that I swear sounds like he is plotting to kill me. He’s kinda freaky, but we like him.
I’ve a Blue Front Amazon named Larry, very sweet and very much a bastard.
I’m a budgie girl myself. Or I was. I have too many cats now to trust having a bird around (they’re all to fond of the bird feeder outside). But I’ve had alot of budgies, most notably Nietzsche (yes I was a pretentious teenager). I used to line up a number of things (chapstick, little bottles of perfume, whatever came to hand) on the edge of a table and he would methotically go down the line and knock them all off. We could amuse ourselves for hours doing this 
.
He was also fond of drinking out of any glass that was left out…perching on the rim and leaning down to the leftover liquid. Once there just wasn’t enough left in the glass and he had to lean a little to far. And fell in. Of course he immediatly flew out and did that “I meant to do that” thing that cats are so good at. But honestly, there’s no sadder sight than a wet budgie.
