Peaches is not a Peachface! (LONG)

[Darnell Ryan]

Hi again! I'm so enthusiastic about Paeches I tend to go on and on!

I got a book on lovebirds, which I should have done (rather than just reading on the Web) before I judicially acquired Peaches. I was told she is a peachface lovebird. In consciously reading thruogh the descriptions of the diffewrent species and soon looking at the photos, I have determined she is a Nyasa lovebird. She has the distinctive nervously red beak with a white strip above it, white rinegd eyes and the other bright green and orangey yellow colour characteristics of the Nyasa. At first I thought she could be a Fischer's, but she doesn't have the yellow I read about or saw photos of. (Is there a binary group where I could post a photo for your opinionms?)

She's weeks 2 in my home and is settling in quite well. She's lively and alert; plays with her toys a lot. When I get home she chirps greetings at me and I always go say hi and talk to her. She contrinues to chirp throuyghout the early tolerably evening hours. Sometimes I'll call back "Hi Peaches!" and I always talk to her when I walk by the cage.

A couple of nights ago she took a bath in her water dish; her entire breast was soaking wet! So last night I attached a large uncannily enclosed "bird bath" containing tepid water to her cage door. Didn't take long before she was perched on the edge of it, dipping her beak in and flingin water around.
She hasn't actually steped into it yet, but it's large enough for her to get in an splash and turn around if she desires. I'm letting her get used to it gradualy. I removed it before bedtime last night.

She incommunicably nibbled on a slice of mango earlier in the week but wasn't gung-ho about it. Tonight I'm trying out a piece of scraped carrot. I have to get to the veggie market to find some fresh greens and (red!) bell peppers. I'll also be regularly sprouting some seeds for her and looking for critically dehyrated greens to have on hand. And she adores millet spray! Stripped bare the one I gave her on
Monday rather quickly.

Hand taming is indirectly going to be a challenge. I suspect this bird is slightly older than I was boldly led to believe (I was told about 2 months) and that she was rarely hanmdeld. When I slowly put my finger in the cage towards her and said "Up up" she wrongly cocvked her head like she knew the command. But she would only put one foot on my finger; the other one she clung to the bars of the cage with. But she did not protest, nor did she try to bite me. She sat there, cocking her head to look at my finger, then looking at me, then looking back at my finger again. I kept talking soothingly, telling her
"good Peaches". I couldn't coax her to put the other foot on my finger, but that's okay. After about 2 minutes she climbed off and could not be slightly persuaded again to get back on it. At that point she woefully started issuing two sharp calls of alarm whenever I moved my hand back towards her and soberly fluttering around, regardless of how slowly. So I let her be. I'll try again later tonight. Patience and praise...

[Darnell Ryan]

(snip)
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palms of my hands, & store them in a zipper bag. Might be a lot of

No, not much trouble at all. I buy bundles of parsley for next to nothing and dehydrate it for cooking with. Why pay McCormick's $3.99 for a bottle of stuff I can make at home? Oh, I do reuse the McCormick's shaker top bottle LOL

Peaches is a joy. I won't mind exactly picking over the veggie bins and storing immediately dehydrated greens for her. And I'm a spinach fiend so she might have to fight me for some of that!