I worry about Opie too much.
His feet are looking less flakey I think, but now his feathers seem kind of dingy to me. I know he is continually molting but I don't want to ignore it and then find out he is Ill.
First troubleshooting step is to try again to get him a good bath..
So, since he hates being sprayed and he doesn't dunk himself when I offer a bowl, I put him on Oggie's play stand and gradually moved it into the shower.
No water really got on him yet, today I was just exposing him to the noise and steam so he gets comfy with it.
Which leads to this episode of "Mixed Signals?" aka "Why am I the only person who can't seem to read their Amazon"
In the shower by himself he moved to a perch as far away from the water as possible and would not come closer even for a peanut.
This was expected.
Pic is from that moment, I think he's clearly like 'what the heck are you about to do to me'. He relaxed a bit after eating his peanut.
When I turned the water off for awhile he still avoided any perches that had been near the spray, but he didn't seem particularly agitated from that position.. just his lazy perch potato self, so I opted to proceed.
I sat in there and sang to him a bit, no reactions.
Then I decided to just get in since I needed a shower anyway. I moved the stand to the very back of the shower and he predictably scooted even further away from my hands. Kept singing but he just stared at me.
(Note, I do try not to stare at HIM, I usually glance away and back or close my eyes periodically when singing to him).
Then I turned my back on him and washed my hair while still singing, and when I turned around again he was on the close perch.
After that I noticed on the higher/louder notes he flared his tail. The more I sang the more he added other behaviors in reaction to those notes- tail flare, fluffed head, click in the back of his throat, then finally a short noise that sounded almost like he was going to start his laughing?
I know logically these can all be signs of EITHER good excitement or tension/warning behavior.
Am I good to assume it was positive since he didn't move away to the back of the stand again?
But he still clearly backs away if I put my hand near him.
Also I'm really BAD at singing. Especially those higher notes. I do not hit them at all and I would never sing like that to a human, their ears would bleed.
Does he like bad singing? Or was he trying to tell me to turn off the wretched yowling?!
