Making Friends With Bert

Senegal parrots tend to attach to one person, perhaps all parrots do this but I don't know about other breeds.  When we got Bert he decided that he liked me.  I think it had something to do with the chunk he took out of my finger the first time I tried to pet him and then I was brave enough to try and pet him again.  I now have a scar to ever remember Bert from but he must of thought I wasn't a threat anymore and so far has not bitten me again.  When you draw blood from one person, other people are not so eager to try and pet you.  Spark plays in his room a lot and Bert has gotten somewhat attached to him.  If Spark is in his room and opens Bert's door so he can climb on top of his cage, he sometimes will fly down and land on Spark's shoulder or head and once in while will even let Spark pet him when he is in his cage.  Spark still isn't too eager to stick his finger in Bert's cage, I think my bleeding finger is still in his mind.  Bert loves Legos, which Spark usually has out when he is in his room, so I think that may have been part of the attraction to Spark.  This is all well and good but, Bert is Dancer's bird.

Dancer has been spending time in Spark's room sitting on his bed, playing music (Bert loves music and will dance), and quietly reading or drawing.  She opens Bert's door so he can come out and sit on his cage.  Finally, finally, Bert decided that Dancer must be okay because he flew over and landed on her chest.  Then he climbed up on her shoulder and started preening her hair (something he use to do to his old owner).  Of course when he did this the battery in one camera was dead and the memory card in the other was locked.  By the time we got those to dilemmas fixed Bert had jumped down.  He did come back later and sit on her leg.

He also jumped on her other knee.  Dancer is doing a pet education project for 4-H on parrot toys and for the project you are suppose to have a picture of you and your pet.  Mission accomplished finally!  Dancer would like one of him sitting on her shoulder but if this is the best we can get without freaking Bert out this is the picture that will go on her poster.

I just read the post to the kids to see what they thought of it and Bert can tell we are talking about him.  He is in his room yelling out, "Pretty, pretty, pretty Bert."  A humble bird he is not.