New Toys at Birdie Britches Bird Toys

Birdie Britches Bird Toys Newsletter

September 2012

Greetings!

Welcome to all of our new friends! We hope you like what you see and if you are looking for something and don't see it ~ please ask and we will do our best to make it or find it! We encourage suggestions and comments.

This month we are announcing three new toy

designs!! In-Cog-Neato, approximately 7" long, will delight the small to medium size birds with three cogs spaced with colorful rings on the handle of a wooden spoon. Three colorful polyropes dangle on the spoon part, each with four colorful bear beads.

Birdie Cabana is an imaginative revision of the usual birdie bed. Two sizes make the Cabana perfect for small to medium size birds. Wide fleece strips are knotted around a top ring to a bottom ring, with fleece ends dangling for chewing. There are two crossed fleece "perches" inside the Cabana for roosting.

For those of you with large birds, take heart, another birdie bed creation will be coming soon for them.

Finally, I got to design When Pigs Fly! I've been

wanting to work on this idea for ages. It is a plastic boomerang with 13 strings of plastic chain hanging along the bottom with plastic pigs at the end of each one. Some plastic stars and "clouds" are hung along some of the chains for extra intrigue. This toy will be especially fun for those high energy small to medium size birds.

Birdie Britches Bird Toys was at the Tulsa bird fair on the 8th of September, where we made some great new friends, and we will be at the Bird Fair in Lafayette, Louisiana September 29 and 30. If you are in the area, please stop by and see us.

Remember to check our website or Facebook page often for new designs; and always remember to practice safe toys!

Sincerely,

Lisa McManus

Birdie Britches Bird Toys

Ask Gandalf

Q&A With a Wise Old Bird

wiseoldbird@yahoo.com

Ok, so there weren't any questions this month so on with my story.

The next stop on my life's adventures was very happy. I was adopted by a terrific family with kids and dogs and they were very good to me. I wasn't in a cage most of the time and I got some really good food. I loved being with them.

The kids were really nice to me and I pretended not to like them but I really did. I didn't like some of their friends though when they came over but the family always protected me from these little varmints.

One time we took a car trip and they actually took me along. We were in the car for a long time and I got really bored but I did like not being left at home. At night we would sleep in a tent and that was kind of scary. I could hear crickets and other noises that made me think there might be big scary animals out there ready to eat me.

I lived with this family for a long time. I watched the kids grow up and start to go away. I don't know where they went but I would only see them once in awhile. I missed them.

Then one day there was a lot of crying and everyone was upset. I was upset too because I didn't know what was wrong.

A lady came and took me and my cage and I never saw the family again. I really missed them.

My next home was awful. I was in a small cage in a pet shop. I didn't have any toys, my cage was small and I never got let out either. The food was crummy and very often the water was yucky. Then people would come and say stupid things like "Polly wants a cracker". My name isn't Polly; in fact I'm a boy. I decided that this was a good time to pluck all my feathers where I could reach.

Finally some people came and took me and my cage to their office. They said they were fosters, whatever that means. It was okay but I didn't have a window to look out of and I was alone a lot.

One day some women came to meet me. One of them brought her husband back to see if they could take me home. They took me to their house and that's where I am still today. I live with a whole lot of small birds, but I really do like them as long as they don't get too near. I have the lady and man thinking that I'm mean and they are afraid I'll bite them. Hehehehe, this way they won't try to pick me up. I hate being picked up.

I am fed great food, lots of good seeds, nuts, fruits and veggies. I don't have to go into my cage at night, but I can if I want to and I love that. I go in when those pesky little birds bother me and it keeps me from biting them. I have had many adventures and I like being fed, warm and loved. My woman slave even tells me I'm pretty. I don't pluck much anymore (just enough to keep my perfect body look), but my feathers won't grow back since I plucked them for so long. I am happy, well at least as happy as a blue and gold macaw can be at 80 some years of age.

This is where I've learned to use the computer and write this column. So now my tale is done and PLEASE SEND ME QUESTIONS FOR NEXT MONTH to

wiseoldbird@yahoo.com

As always Arrrrggggghhhhhh

Gandalf

The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of this company, not necessarily those of the editor, and probably not necessary.

For Your Library

The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots

by Irene Maxine Pepperberg

Overview

Can a parrot understand complex concepts and mean what it says? Since the early 1900s, most studies on animal-human communication have focused on great apes and a few cetacean species. Birds were rarely used in similar studies on the grounds that they were merely talented mimics-that they were, after all, "birdbrains." Experiments performed primarily on pigeons in Skinner boxes demonstrated capacities inferior to those of mammals; these results were thought to reflect the capacities of all birds, despite evidence suggesting that species such as jays, crows, and parrots might be capable of more impressive cognitive feats.

Twenty years ago Irene Pepperberg set out to discover whether the results of the pigeon studies necessarily meant that other birds-particularly the large-brained, highly social parrots-were incapable of mastering complex cognitive concepts and the rudiments of referential speech. Her investigation and the bird at its center-a male Grey parrot named Alex-have since become almost as well known as their primate equivalents and no less a subject of fierce debate in the field of animal cognition. This book represents the long-awaited synthesis of the studies constituting one of the landmark experiments in modern comparative psychology.

Barnes and Noble, The Alex Studies