I had forgotten how quickly baby birds grow up!   Just two weeks ago I was marveling at Gizzy learning to climb and perch and now she's flying!   Once she started holding onto my hand and flapping her wings with earnest, we started practicing her beginner flight skills by tossing her gently a few feet onto the soft bedcovers.  She loved this "game" and within one day she started taking off on her own to travel from one side of the bed to the other.   Although most of her flights this week have been a short 4 to 5 feet from her "bappy" cage to the bed, she surprised me this morning by flying three times that distance directly onto my hand, a feat that absolutely thrilled me.  I had to have her repeat it one more time right away to believe it wasn't just a fluke.   Tonight she got even more adventurous and tried some steep climbs and turns which resulted in some very awkward but relatively successful landings.    

I'm planning on keeping Gizzy flighted and I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of a Aviator Flight Harness so that I can get her used to putting it on while she is young.  We are also going to get started on clicker training and read up on recall training as soon as possible.

One other "first" this week, Gizzy got to travel to the office with me where she met 6 more members of my feathered family as well as my staff.   So far, she is taking on all of these new adventures and social encounters eagerly.  I'm so blessed.

We've added a fun new feature to our Parrot ecard site (www.HopeForFeathers.com).   Einstein, the amazing Talking Texan Parrot, has donated some sound files!  Now you can add some cute sayings to the cards you send to your friends. 

For this month's newsletter, I decided to revisit some holiday safety tips as well as get a little silly with a revised look at the 12 Days of Christmas, I hope you enjoy it.