Pale Male Hangs Out, and Quicksilver the African Grey Parrot Guards the Chest of Drawers

     photo courtesy of palemale.com/

  Pale Male and a helicopter.  Note  the Monarch of Central Park isn't phased in the least.

(Blogger is once again malfunctioning.  Sorry for any inconvenience. ) 

Longtime NYC hawkwatcher and astronomy buff Mitch Nussbaum  nabs a shot of Pale Male.

  I was back in NY last weekend for a family re-union. I found him atop the Carlyle at 5 past 3. I feel lucky to see him, for the park was packed at that time, and the other birds were being skittish. I always wanted to image PM with this camera. Truly-Mitch
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51058083@N03/9544374648/ (Preview)

Now the strange occurrence of the splinters on the laundry room floor and Silver, the African Grey Parrot, clicks, menaces, and charms. 

 It all began, well it didn't really all begin here, but it was the first rather mysterious occurrence.  Suddenly splinters began to appear on the floor of the laundry room.

How odd.

Well okay, perhaps not as I live with a parrot and Silver had decided that the laundry room was a great place to hang out.  Hence the towels covering the furniture.

Plus during the day, the curtains are open and there is a sunflower jungle just outside the window.  Therefore there are many bird visitors to watch.  Plus chipmunk skirmishes, squirrel sex, and the occasional crow looking in a Silver.  Kind of a in the moment nature cam for parrots.  I thought that this was the attraction.  Silly me.

The splinters kept appearing though I lifted the towels looking for secret gnawing...nothing.

Wait, lets backtrack a couple of weeks...just past Silver's chest of drawers perch and to the left, is the small downstairs bathroom.  Whenever I went into it, Silver would fly off the chest, walk in the door, say very sweetly, "Hi hon."  and pinch my big toe with his beak.  

Very amusing.  At least he thought so as he'd then laugh.

Well the other day when I came out of the bathroom and past the chest the other direction he followed me on foot.  Hmmm.

And he'd keep coming...

And he kept coming.  The toe pinching thing was getting a little  aggressive no matter how sweetly he said, "Hi hon."  I told him to knock it off.  (The debris on the floor behind him contained some splinters but it was also the result of a sunflower knosh.)

The next time I passed through the laundry room I heard this weird clicking sound coming from under the chest of drawers.

Guess who?

Silver appeared from under the wreck of chest of drawers.  Note the different posture from the previous advance.  This posture is aggressive.  Do Greys actually have an innate warning noise that is a click?  He'd never done it before.  

Note all the splinters.  Silver appears to be excavating a nesting cavity under the chest  though I'd never caught him under it before.  The little sneak.

I'd kept walking and evidentally passed some invisible line as he then, neck feathers still standing turned back to his "nesting cavity".

 

And back under he went.

Gnawing sounds wafted from under the chest.  I said "Silver! What are you doing?" in one of my best I'm-the-boss-voices.
We'd already had this argument about him opening the kitchen cabinets and removing things, which he'd lost.  (I put up a magnetic screen door so he couldn't fly into the kitchen anymore.)

Blogger has frozen when it comes to photos...

 MORE TO COME...

DB