Fluffy Jail Bird Hops to Glove

That newspaper headline sums up today's stories. Earlier today the Baron was perched on my fist while I was on the couch. He started doing a lot of head bobbing and looking around the room. Then, while looking straight at me, he inflated like a dang puffer fish! Whoa! Totally freaked me out. I thought he was going for my eyeballs for sure. Turns out he just finally had become comfortable enough while on my fist to puff out his feathers and straighten things out. Later on and through most of the evening he was fairly fluffy looking, only slicking his feathers down again when the dog went past or some other nervous distraction occurred.

He's so fluffy, I'm gonna die!!

Now that he's more comfortable he's trying like mad to escape his jesses. He'll turn around on my fist so his back is toward me and start yanking on them for all he's worth, every now and then turning around to make sure I haven't caught on to what he's doing. "Is the warden looking?" Pretty sneaky. I wonder how long til I'll need to replace them.

Lastly, I did feed him a good amount earlier in the day but wanted to work on him hopping to the glove for food and taking food like a man vs. a baby. So I set him up on his perch and showed him the first tidbit and made him lean out for it. Success. Then I placed a piece on the tip of my thumb on the glove and separated it from the index finger a little so he could hop to the finger and eat from the thumb. I backed my wrist up to the perch and let him walk across like a bridge. He got that figured out so I put my hand about 3-4 inches away and after a lot of head bobbing and looking around the room he finally hopped to the glove and ate. I replaced him on the perch and did it again and he was successful another 7-8 times, jumping about a foot at the end. We'll see how he does tomorrow, but I think he'll get the idea. I'll have to attach a longer leash and see how far we can get tomorrow. All this and his weight was only 7 grams lower than it was when I caught him just 2 days ago.

Oh, one more thing. A brief update on Killer, the demon mouse. (See last Saturday's post if you don't know his background.) Moo went to say goodnight to the Baron, the gerbil, and the mouse. I guess she decided to try and pet the mouse. Bad idea. She came in with blood dripping down her finger. That mouse has thrown cheese off the menu and added raw meat. Moo demanded to be allowed to personally, and with extreme prejudice and malice aforethought, feed said rodent alive to the Baron when the time comes. And she's an animal lover.