Brooks Take Two

It's a week since the green bundle of feathers that is Brooks joined our household. She enjoys company, whistles happily to herself while she preens and sleeps contentedly through the night hanging from the top of her cage.

She also disciplines us with sharp pecks as she sees fit. She sees fit to do so if M holds the telephone in her shoulder space or my movements are too rapid when she sits curiously on my forearm. A peck of that nature leads to a time-out in her cage.

In one such time-out session, Brooks hung cutely in her cage, eye-balled me, and chirped loudly. She wanted the door opened; the time-out had been long enough. No, you're not coming out now. She didn't care for the reply and showed her displeasure with a hissy fit.

Astounded, I watched as she crashed around her cage, pecked angrily at the beads on her swing, swung at the cuttlefish and scrapped her beak against it in a fit of anger. She hopped from branch to branch pecking wildly at anything in her way.

She was mad! I laughed; I couldn't believe my eyes.

Next she made me out to be a liar. The same temper tantrum tyke settled on M's shoulder for two hours that evening, not budging, falling asleep with her head tucked into her back feathers between her wings - an absolute angel.

Tantrum? What tantrum? Who's going to believe a story about rage in the cage from such cuteness?

At this stage, she hadn't pecked M yet, and so who was to be believed? Well, well - a bird with a feisty personality - this could get interesting!