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birds
December 2009 
Ninja Assassin
Posted on Jul 21st, 2009
by 
Bird
Bird
TERRITORY
If Yang was a cat, he would be a black panther. When he was a year old, I got a female senegal to pair him with but he was not gentle with her. I separated them. They never reconciled.
When he was still a baby, he broke the beak of a female cockatiel so badly, I had to euthanize her. She wouldn't give up her perch. He took it. I stopped letting the parrots out with the little birds.
Yang also accidently deformed two other small birds' beaks in the years to come. They were arguing over territory. It happened both times with one bird inside and one bird outside the cage.
He's been cagemates with the sun conure, Ping, for years. Ping's beak was bitten slightly once, but it healed just fine and the two seem copacetic. They're the same size.
A few weeks ago I discovered a parakeet had died from a bite to its beak. I didn't know it happened until it was over ... very over. I thought I needed to get rid of the flight cage and put everyone back in small cages. (Now I wish I'd listened.)
I blamed my lovebirds for my parakeet trouble. Now I'm wondering if Yang had anything to do with it. Did he sneak out before? Most of the time, Yang is indifferent to everyone else in the flock. He's the one I hand to people who don't know birds because he will fly away before he'll bite them. Yang is not a bad bird .... if you're a lot bigger than him.
I put the water bowl in the wrong hole and left one door open. I was blissfully unaware. Heck, now that I think back, that's happened before and nothing seemed to come of it. Did it?
At lunch I found my Moon Conure dead. Yang got out, infiltrated the flight cage, and killed Lala (who was half his size). I thought it was just a bite. There was very little blood. Closer inspection proves it wasn't just a bite. The spinal cord was completely severed. How could this happen? And how could things get so intense?
Territory.
Territory? I'm still in shock. Territory?
Territory. It's the only thing that makes it make sense. The fight occured on top of a female parrots cage. Neither of them wanted her. She's a ringneck for heaven's sake! She didn't want them either, but she's almost made herself sick standing in the corner of her cage near the hole the lovebird's made for a nest and pining for eggs of her own. Surely the males are just as affected by a maelstrom of hormones too.
Hormones.
Territory.
Cages.
Lala was 16 years old. I expected him to live twice that long.
I'm hoping Yang's lifespan will be about three times that. I gingerly fondled his head. He complained at first, but quickly fell into the groove as I stroked him belly up.
I put Lala in my flower garden near Jake.
If Yang was a cat, he would be a black panther. When he was a year old, I got a female senegal to pair him with but he was not gentle with her. I separated them. They never reconciled.
When he was still a baby, he broke the beak of a female cockatiel so badly, I had to euthanize her. She wouldn't give up her perch. He took it. I stopped letting the parrots out with the little birds.
Yang also accidently deformed two other small birds' beaks in the years to come. They were arguing over territory. It happened both times with one bird inside and one bird outside the cage.
He's been cagemates with the sun conure, Ping, for years. Ping's beak was bitten slightly once, but it healed just fine and the two seem copacetic. They're the same size.
A few weeks ago I discovered a parakeet had died from a bite to its beak. I didn't know it happened until it was over ... very over. I thought I needed to get rid of the flight cage and put everyone back in small cages. (Now I wish I'd listened.)
I blamed my lovebirds for my parakeet trouble. Now I'm wondering if Yang had anything to do with it. Did he sneak out before? Most of the time, Yang is indifferent to everyone else in the flock. He's the one I hand to people who don't know birds because he will fly away before he'll bite them. Yang is not a bad bird .... if you're a lot bigger than him.
I put the water bowl in the wrong hole and left one door open. I was blissfully unaware. Heck, now that I think back, that's happened before and nothing seemed to come of it. Did it?
At lunch I found my Moon Conure dead. Yang got out, infiltrated the flight cage, and killed Lala (who was half his size). I thought it was just a bite. There was very little blood. Closer inspection proves it wasn't just a bite. The spinal cord was completely severed. How could this happen? And how could things get so intense?
Territory.
Territory? I'm still in shock. Territory?
Territory. It's the only thing that makes it make sense. The fight occured on top of a female parrots cage. Neither of them wanted her. She's a ringneck for heaven's sake! She didn't want them either, but she's almost made herself sick standing in the corner of her cage near the hole the lovebird's made for a nest and pining for eggs of her own. Surely the males are just as affected by a maelstrom of hormones too.
Hormones.
Territory.
Cages.
Lala was 16 years old. I expected him to live twice that long.
I'm hoping Yang's lifespan will be about three times that. I gingerly fondled his head. He complained at first, but quickly fell into the groove as I stroked him belly up.
I put Lala in my flower garden near Jake.
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I had a similar experience last week with my terriers and a kitten… But was finally able to save the kitten… I trust these 2 dogs so much that i would leave a kid with them without being worried… But they almost killed the kitten… Why? History? Territory? There are a lot of things in this world that I do not undertsand, and this is one of them… Am sorry for Lala… She is gone to a place where are no territories, just Love… Hugs my friend…
Thank you. My aviary is so quiet without that little bird. Someone asked if I thought about getting rid of the other parrot since he's been so hostile. I told them he's not a problem unless you're smaller than him. I guess that means goodbye flight cage since the little birds aren't safe.
I wonder what the situation was like from Lala's perspective. He loved and petted his female senegal for years. Maybe he was ready to take the same step she did with the dog. It's hard to understand. How do you make someone else mad enough to bite your neck in half?
My friend pointed out how small their brains are, called them dinosaurs, and pretty much turned my pets into automatons … doing what they do. But I don't buy his argument. No one's mind is in their brain.
Terriers have evolved to chase critters. They can't be trusted with a feline who can't defend itself, but I suspect they will have a totally different relationship once YOU lay down the law … and the cat can remind them of your wishes.
I can understand the silence after one dear bird leaving the place… Do not think that the “territory” is in the brain, it has to be something with survival instincts, we, humans, have that too… I just remember the hurricane last year and how people reacted during, before and after the storm… Interesting to lay down on the grass to make my point to the terriers… I do not know, when they wish to hunt something I compare them with humans when they do not thing… They just act, no pause before, so the instincts are taking over brain, soul, experiences, examples or anythings else… but they are the most loving animals I ever had, kind and gentle till they get around cats… And also I do not think that animals get mad, I believe is something about instincts they we do not understand because we lost it or we do not experience it so often being tamed in civilization (so called - smiles) or we have it just during significant dangerous periods in need to survive… We have that dinosaurs genes too, the “reptilian brain”… and this is helping us to survive… But all these words do not make your place less silent… Hugs my friend…
I keep listening for Lala. One friend suggests this is the best time to hear him. He was such a little clown. He always reached down from a perch above me to play with my hair when I got near him.
http://factoidz.com/bird-brained-why-we-should-question-the-theory-of-evolution/
Lala will always sing inside of your heart… When I lost my old dog, I have noticed the silence… but I still dream him… after 9 years… Interesting article, thanks! But if the birds are part of a bigger consciousness, like all the animals, and like we are? Maybe there are different reasons that we try to translate in human terms… and we do not understand their way of being… I do not know… Hugs…
Why is this material important as well as fascinating? Because it suggests that to understand the evolutionary bases for cognition, we must also examine cognition in creatures quite removed from humans. Other forms of cognition exist that are as interesting, as important, and that might have similar evolutionary bases.
Parrots live in an environment that both matches and differs from that of apes. With respect to similarities, birds also have to deal with a complex ecology. Grey parrots, for example, forage up to 60 kilometers a day. They are at least as long-lived as apes, so they must keep track of changes in the rain forest and the savanne over the course of 30 to 60 years — both seasonal changes and long-term environmental changes.
Greys live in large flocks. Unlike apes, they separate out into pairs during breeding seasons. We don't know too much about their social strata, but they definitely defend their nest areas from other pairs. We suspect, given what we see in the laboratory — and this is not a joke — a definite pecking order and hierarchy, at least in small groups.
We know that chimpanzees and monkeys must keep track of social strata by what in humans would be termed “transitive inference” — that if Sam beat up on Joe and Joe beat up on me, I'd better not even go near Sam. This information is important for survival in a group. But such information also is not static; it has to be upgraded over the course of the animals' lives. Possibly parrots have similar strata. Nick Humphrey suggested these ideas almost 30 years ago; that is, given a long-lived creature that exists in a complex socio-ecological system, that creature has likely been selected for high-level intelligence and cognition. I think those same evolutionary pressures work on parrots.