Kestral

What lucky birds you have! Alas this year Holly decided to take the toddler approach to his christmas present - i.e. by being captivated by the wrapping paper and then ignoring the new toy inside :S

Your little one sounds very funny in his sleeping choices... I remember Holly trying to get into his seed pots when I first got him, but he never actually succeeded! I think its just another weird budgie trait....my first budgie Pip used to doze of hanging with one foot on his dangling toy and the other on the wall of the cage, and also hanging upside down too. Holly has taken to taking mini naps on the floor of his cage with his chin resting on the little weeble toy he has in his cage, not sure if plastic makes a comfy pillow, but it's his choice I guess!

It's funny how they use one word more than all the others they've learnt..Holly's favourite word is bird, so we hear things like good bird, bye bye bird, hello bird etc from him all the time. He also loves to make his beeping noise that he learnt from our answer machine, we hear that one heaps too.

That sounds so funny! I know what you mean about thinking your bird is part bat. My first budgie Pip used to spend half his time upside down - he had a dangling mirror toy in his cage and he used to hang upside down from the roof of his cage and look at himself and chatter away to the mirror. I swear sometimes he used to even doze off upside down sometimes. Holly on the other hand only hangs upside down if I put one of his toys on top of his cage and even then he'll try and sit on a perch and stretch up to reach it rather than go upside down - I guess some birds like being the wrong way up more than others!

okay so I was looking at a site which had lots of descriptions of budgie mutations and now I'm wondering whether Holly (who is now a whole year old :hap:) is really an albino or if he is a double factor spangle. My main question is do albinos get iris rings? The site I was on seemed to suggest that they don't, and said that DF spangles do have irises that lighten with age - but I'm unsure if I've interpreted this right so thought I'd check with the experts!! Holly is completely white (though he does reflect a little pale sky blue in some lights) and if you look very carefully you can just about make out wing markings on him which are ever so slightly darker than his main body colour. He has reddish eyes and has iris rings now that he is a big boy. So...albino or DF spangle?

I love the third picture, it's too cute!! Yup Holly loves my hair, and as my hair is down to my waist there's plenty for him to burrow into. I often have to "retrieve" him from my hair as he just dives in without realising he's just gonna get himself tangled up, (Laughing out loud).

So cute! I love the last picture...it looks like he is listening to the bars of his cage! Hehe

Those pics of your little cereal thief are too cute! Once they decide they like something of yours there's no escaping...when I had my Pip if you had toast you would not get any peace until you gave him a piece for himself...he also stole a scone from my mum by sitting on her head, sliding down her forhead and sitting on the scone...needless to say she didn't fancy finishing it after it'd had bird feet on it (it is my favourite photo of my first budgie, him sitting on the scone munching away )

Well Holly had a jolly good bath the other day and I couldn't resist getting my camera out to snap some pics of him all soggy...if only my camera was better quality...oh well! Perhaps if I look away she'll stop taking photos.. Clearly she hasn't got the message yet.. This is so unfair...mean mummy taking photos of my soggy belly Well yes I suppose I better pose now I'm dry and whiter than white (for the next 5 minutes at least) But still don't do that again mum!!

Haha...its funny that they don't know what it is they're saying...and I agree that I wish I knew what all the "martian" garble Holly says is. Holly came out with a new one today...the room was quiet and he was sitting on the floor of his cage and said very clearly in the high pitched little voice he gets from me "Hello Beeps!" Reason being he picked up the sound the answer machine makes (a beep noise) when he kept getting chucked out of the living room for being too noisy when my dad was ill and off work for three weeks, so I have taken to calling him Beeps as another of his nick names. I'm currently working on whistling the first line of "Twinkle twinkle little star" with him...so far I've heard him do the first 4 notes and then he stops. Ravengypsy, I can't really help about your birds talking as Holly is the only bird I have therefore he listens to me and my family all the time and so he's picked up quite a lot (he's certainly the quickest learner I've had...my brother taught him to whistle in a week)...but he also makes chirps like the wild sparrows he can hear outside too.

So interesting to hear the reasons people have come up with names for their birds! Well for me...first budgie I had was Pip...I was only 10 at the time (I bought him with my birthday money - the best £10 I've ever spent, for sure!) and for some reason I had it in my head that I wanted to call him Pip. He was green too, like apples and apples have pips so I guess the link is kind of there Then we had Smudge...he was a yellowface type II and I was trying out names about his colour and said...you've got blue and yellow bits smudged together like someone's painted you...so Smudge he became. My dad used to call him Smuggles tho, (Laughing out loud). And now we have Holly (who is a boy, and I did think he was a boy from the start, so this is not a case of getting his gender wrong when I got him!) I didn't want to be obvious and call him Snowy (he's albino) and since it was nearly christmas when I got him so I tried out some christmassy names and Holly just kind of got in there, despite it being a girls name really. But I said if I call you Holly, that makes you Budgie Holly (Buddy Holly - get it? (Laughing out loud)) cos I wasn't really looking for a bird as Smudge had not long died very suddenly but there was Holly in the pet shop singing his little heart out. I walked away once, but when I went back a week later he was still there and still singing and so I got my parents to come see him and well ten minutes later he was on his way home with us!! I did want to call him Pinky for a bit cos of his bright pink feet but that was the name of my auntie's white cat.

I can't say I've cuddled him but he does snuggle up to me for head scratches. He'll get a big head if I tell him everybody thinks he's handsome!

Haven't been on here much - been busy with finishing at my job and making arrangements for starting my PhD in October. Thought I'd post a few pics of Holly who is now about 10 months old and quite the character - very soppy and always eager for head scratches. Hope you like my little fluffy albino boy Streeeetch Yes this is the best seat in the house Floof! Yes I know how gorgeous I am - this is my best side don't cha know? Hmm..this camera thing is reaaally shiny Perhaps I should get in here for a close up

I know what you mean. Holly, the current feathery addition to our household is the most attached to me bird we have had. He likes to sit on his swing in the top corner of his cage and watch me at the dinner table and from there he can happily just about see me when I'm in our kitchen too. He's always there at the front of the cage should he catch a glimpse of me, though he does respond to the rest of the family - since I'm the one who feeds him, scratches his head and lets him out I am obviously number one in his affections.

I know how you feel Bea. With Holly at the moment I am trying to deal with humping and regurgitating. It's strange how he used to hump his ladder all the time and then I moved it to the other side of the cage and I have not seen him hump it since (instead he uses it as his place to sit which i scratch his head and he goes to sleep). I have cleaned the cage and removed the jingly ball which has been receiving all the food it does not want - for some reason the other non jingly ball just gets humped, not fed. Going to see if I can get a few less humpable toys at the weekend to replace the ones I have tried which have either gotten broken or that Hol just didn't take to. I totally sympathise with Bea...tho I don't have the added problem of other budgies getting picked on cos I just have Holly, it is very very frustrating to be watching tv and hearing nothing but a poor jingly toy getting humped to within an inch of its life. Holly is only six months old and so even if I was thinking of getting him a mate to try and appease the humping (which I'm not sure is really the answer anyway) he's way too young to breed from. I guess we just have to try all we can and hope we don't wake up one morning to a cage full of mutant budgie-jingly ball babies!