Sun-Ray Chiming In: One of the Pleasures in Life

Hello all!

What my Mama and I have in common is that we believe food is one of the pleasures in life. I love eating! Mama used to feed me with mixed seeds, which I loved so much. But too bad, lately she has been reducing my seed intake. As she keeps telling me, seeds are high in fat, which is not good for me. I don't get it! How can something so good be so bad?

She's feeding me pellets now, as she thinks they're good because each bite contains all the nutrients I need (although, I've no idea what nutrients are - let alone what I need them for!). The pellets are not bad at all, and I munch especially greedily when Mama mixes them with egg food.

Photo: Mama insists that pellets are better than mixed seeds. Even though I don't complain having to eat these pellets much more than anything else, given a choice, I would prefer mixed seeds anytime!

Photo: These colourful pellets appeal more to my sight than my taste bud, so it makes them fun to eat!

Veggies are also my favourite. Pennywort (pegaga), spinach (bayam), water spinach (kangkung), Chinese kale (kailan), alfalfa sprouts, broccoli... just bring it on! Mama always compares me with some other kids on their reluctance to eat vegetables. I get praises for making her life easy.

Photo: Golden Butterhead leaves? Any day!

Photo: Because of this picture, I've got another name given by Mama - Broccoli Bird!

Photo: Veggies are rich in vitamins and minerals - so says Mama. All I know is that they're yummy!

Oh, and I can never get enough of corns! We cockatiels are messy eaters, so besides cleaning up the mess I make after I'm done, Mama also has to wipe the corn pieces off my beak. Otherwise, I'd have hard corn flakes sticking on it!

Photo: Cooked or raw, corns make a good snack to me.

A Labor of Love

Photo: From a terrace to a bungalow!

Since Sun-Ray has moved into a bigger cage, she rarely wants to go out anymore. Apart from allowing me to be creative in decorating her home, the new cage also gives so much distraction to Sun-Ray that everyday it's getting more and more fun watching her play. Instead of one toy, I've installed two. The other one is more of a perch, a swing. And instead of one wooden perch that came with the cage when Syam first bought it, I've put one branch from my mango tree. This particular mango tree branch lets Sun-Ray rest on a different level from the first wooden perch, as well as something that she spends hours and hours gnawing.

Oh, my little birdie also has her own bathtub! Before this, I've read that some owners put a "bathtub" for their tiels in the cage. Not like cats, birds love water and especially on a hot day, they'll want something to cool themselves off with. I take Sun-Ray to bath and mist her often, so I thought that wasn't necessary. Until one day, I caught her trying to fit herself into her small drink bowl! Immediately I changed that one to a bigger food/drink container. From that day, she's been having shower to all her heart's content!


Video: "They have shower at night. Why can't I?"

Toys, for birds, are made as boredom-busters. But most toys are designed to be attached to the cage that it's almost impractical to bring them all outside when your birds are also out of their homes. There are - believe me, there are many - times when Sun-Ray insists on going out of her cage when I have to do important things to attend to. Sometimes she wants me to take her along, and she doesn't mind anywhere. Other times she just wants to stay outside. When that happens, I normally place her on another wooden perch, hanging on the wall or other flat surfaces. Similar to their cousins the cockatoos, cockatiels are also destructive by nature. With nothing to do besides preening, Sun-Ray are often caught chewing the perch.

Photo: Sun-Ray's favourite pastime!

I've always wanted more for my darling. I've always wanted the best, and the next thing on my mind was having a playgym for her. That would keep her occupied whenever she's outside, when at the same time, I couldn't attend to her needs. It still remains a wonder to me to learn that, after visiting numerous pet stores and asking the salespeople, bird playgym is not available in Malaysia. In the meantime, I could only be green in envy everytime I feasted my eyes with the pictures of bird playgyms on the Internet... just as I salivated over Barbie dolls on display when I was eight!

Nonetheless, I'm not the one who would sit around to get what I want - even if it was for my parrot! Armed with little experience with carpentry I gained in secondary school, I collected all the materials that would make a pretty playgym. Syam helped a lot, and in fact, the wooden base and the pieces of woods were from him. For those of you who think the price of a simple playground a little too much to take - especially some are worth much, much more than a new cockatiel - why not make it yourself? You don't have to be a carpenter, really. Just look at things around you and let your creativity streak run wild! Anything for your avian companion, right?

Building a Bird Playgym: STEP 1 - As seen here, this is how it looked like before I 'destroyed' the replica. I only wanted to use the wooden base.

Photo: Sun-Ray is too big for this!

Building a Bird Playgym: STEP 2 - Off with the Polly Pocket bungalow! The wooden base, in the picture below, is bare and has a rough surface. To smoothen it out, I applied a few coats of shellac.

Photo: Putting shellac will also makes it easy for me to wash Sun-Ray's droppings later on.

Building a Bird Playgym: STEP 3 - On my mind, I already knew what I wanted. I sketched the design on a paper. There were some minor alterations from what I imagined it to be, with some addition here and there.

Photo: To super-glue it or to nail it down? We decided the latter.

Building a Bird Playgym: STEP 4 - As well as co-ordination, space is also important. First, so that the bird can move around easily; second, so that the toys and accessories won't collide with each other. So, okay... I didn't really apply the carpentry skills I learnt in school that much - because all the sawing the woods and hammering the nails was left to Syam!

Photo: Yes! This is the basic of this playgym for my beloved tiel!!

Building a Bird Playgym: STEP 5 - The toys and accessories are set in the playgym as entertainment and adornment. The food and drink cups are placed at each end of that perch where I hang that triple-mirror with a bell, so Sun-Ray needs to exercise a bit to quench her thirst and satisfy her hunger. The pink ladder is meant for hamsters, actually. Besides the fact that Pets Wonderland was selling it for half the actual price, I fell in love with the vibrant colour that sure would appeal to Sun-Ray's perspective. Parrots are able to see colours - better than us humans, really - and they do appreciate cyan, magenta, maroon, teal, aqua, beige...

Photo: Colours play an significant role in making this playgym as interesting as possible from a parrot's point of view. The toys and accessories help a lot!

THE VERDICT - Sun-Ray's crest went straight up upon seeing the playgym. She started chewing things, including the colourful hanging toy and the hook of the triple-mirror. Obviously, she didn't know what the ladder was for. My sister put her in the middle of the ladder, and she climbed halfway through the stairs awkwardly. She, apparently, needs more training on this one. Unsurprisingly, she knew where the food and drink cups were. She was, nevertheless, disappointed to find both cups empty. When positioned on the hanging criss-cross perch, Sun-Ray realized how unstable she was and promptly nibbled the wood!

Photo: "I'm gonna getcha!"

Overall, I couldn't be more satisfied and pleased with the playgym I created with the help of Syam. Although the result doesn't look as professionally made ones, Sun-Ray's own playground is truly a labor of my love for her. From time to time, I'll install more toys and beautify it with colourful frills.

Photo: "This is fun!"

Popcorn, my Lutino Cockatiel

Due to the brief period of the opportunity to keep and raise this chick, I hadn't had the chance to capture the moments when Popcorn was still with me. I wasn't sure of the gender, but I half-assumed the baby Lutino was a male. Mostly because of its fiesty and active nature. It demanded food anytime he wanted it, waking me up from sleep most of the time.

But he's gone now. He was sick. But it was too late when I finally found out about it.