A Holiday Treat

For the Holiday we received a spray of millet seed - which you will notice on the previous post we asked Santa for, how lucky is that!

Santa Visits

Santa Claus is coming to visit tonight.  We made sure our letter to Santa was all set for him to take with him to the North Pole.

Happy Christmas!

Our new twig

This is out new twig.  It has multiple layers to perch on and they are all different sizes.  This is very important. Bird feet are very sensitive and are important to our good health, just like you feet are important. For us, being able to stand on a variety of surfaces is healthier.  Next time you visit take a look at our feet.  Unlike your which are generally flat, ours can stretch out flat, curl around almost into a fist, grip or partially curl.  In some ways our feet act a bit like your hands in that we can bend them to grip things.  The more we exercise our grip the healthier our feet our and healthy feet make for a happy bird.

Picture

We like to make having our picture taking as difficult as possible.

Just to make life interesting

Nest Overload

Now you have to be wondering - why does one nest need all this cotton fluff?  There are two reasons: 1 the higher I sit the safer I feel, in case anyone decides to sneek up on me while I'm sleeping and 2 it's just more comfortable this way.  The more fluff I have the better I sleep. Haven't you read the tale of the Princess and the Pea?  Its the same thing with me.

A nice Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  We had a very nice day with seed flavored scrambled eggs, one of our favorite dishes.  We don't get it very often and when we do its quite a treat!  We've been thinking quite a bit about sharing and our feathered friends who are out in the cold.  We've thought of a special treat that you can make and share with your feathered friends.

Materials:
1 slice of toast
peanut butter (or sunflower butter or vegetable shortening)
bird seed
raisins or dried cranberries
knife
cookie cutter, any shape
ribbon

How to:
1.Cut your piece of toast with the cookie cutter and add the ribbon to hang (you'll need to make the hole you can thread a needle or use a straw to poke the hole)
2. Slather your butter onto one side
3. Add the seed and dried fruit.
4. Repeat on the other side of the toast
5. Hang outside where you can watch your feathered friend enjoy their treat.

Percy and Kyp's 1,000 Challenge

WE CHALLENGE YOU!

In a effort to promote reading aloud, we have created a challenge for kids. While Kyp and I love to read on our own, we really prefer being read too. There is nothing quite like hearing a story read aloud to bring it to life. Mom reads us wonderful stories every now and again, and we wanted to spread the joy.  So we have created this 1,000 Challenge.

For kids 5 and under: We challenge you to read 1,000 Books Before you start Kindergarten with your parents.  For kids ages 5 (already in Kindergarten) and up: We challenge you to list to 1,000 read alouds (you choice to do 1,000 read aloud books or 1,000 days of listening to someone read aloud).

Just to keep you interested there will be special prizes from us just for you!

To sign up or to find more information, visit our 1,000 Challenge webpage.

A Quiet Fall

Things have been quiet for us. Lately we've been moving cotton fluff from one nest to the other. In fact its become a bit of a game moving fluff from one nest just to have it moved back again. The weather has been getting a little colder, we can tell by all the kids wearing sweaters, but Mom hasn't turned on our heater yet - she says its not that cold yet. At least she keeps the bath water warm, though between you and me we prefer bathing in our drinking water bowl rather than the bird bath. It's driving Mom nuts. We're hoping that soon Mom will give us a new toy to play with because while quiet can be nice, it does get a little boring.

Our Vacation

Hi everyone we're back!  We decided to go visit our Auntie Pat for a week, while Miss Renee was away on her vacation.  Hey if she gets one, we want one too!  Anyway, we had a great time with Auntie Pat.  It's always fun to visit her.  We got to spend time out on the porch where we could feel the wind in our feathers and say hi to some of our bird friends who visit Auntie Pat's feeders.  It was nice to catch up with all our feathered friends.  There was talk about food, nests, eggs and babies, who flew the highest or the fastest, lots of talk about the neighborhood cats, a hawk and even the games kids in the neighborhood were playing.  We caught up on all the gossip. 

At night we got to spend time with Auntie Pat, she reads to us, sings to us and talks to us all the time. It was nice to hear about all the things she's been doing since we saw her last.  She is a very busy lady.   Overall we had a wonderful time visiting, but its nice to be home.

Our Superhero Summer

Apparently we both wanted to be Superman

Boom! Kapow! Wham!  We're action packes

Belmont Public Library for Birds

The Belmont Public Library was created for birds.  Yup, that's right -  no humans allowed.  We are so jealous!  To read more about this story click here.

Special thanks to our friend Mollie, for sending us this story!

Every Hero has a Story!

It's an interesting topic this year, but I find that not only heroes have interesting stories to tell but many people do.  I know that Kyp and I have quite a few stories to tell about our adventures, that is part of the reason that we run this blog.  I mean who would think that two little birds would have so much to say.  

But I will admit that heroes probably have more interesting stories than we do.  Rescue dogs must get into some unusual and dangerous places to rescue humans in trouble, there are even cats who warn their families of fires in their homes, not to mention the wild animals who face danger every day.  But even the simple stories sound fantastic - like the dolphin who survived with an artificial tail, or the tortoise who befriended a baby hippo.  Those are heroes.  So maybe our stories aren't that heroic, but then again if someone is getting joy out of our blog and we're making someone smile on a day they feel blue, isn't that a little heroic.  

Who ever said that being a hero meant doing big deeds, maybe those of us who do little, quiet deeds are heroes too, maybe those are the silent heroes, the people you see everyday who make a little difference whether we notice or not.  That means that kids and birds can be heroes too.

Some animal hero book suggestions:

• Winter's Tail by Juliana Hatkoff
• Owen and Mzee by Craig Hatkoff
• Ellie's Story by W. Bruce Cameron
• Hero Dogs by Donna Jackson
• Rescue Dogs by Judith Presnall
• Cats to the Rescue by Marilyn Singer

Stars are born

We've have finally reached stardom and have received the recognition we deserve.  Our picture has made it into the paper, The Valley Breeze April 9, 2015.
 

Apparently we are now considered live entertainment at the library, while I'm sure we entertain kids and adults, we are just ourselves.  We're not about to let stardom go to our heads.

A Story Time for Us

We spend a lot of time watching Miss Renee read stories, parents reading stories to kids, kids reading to themselves.  We've even heard that some kids take the time to read to dogs.  But until today no one has thought to read to us.  Today a little boy was with us today, watching very intently.  He was as interesting to us to watch as we were to him I'm sure.  Until suddenly he got off the stool kids use to see us, picked up a book and began reading to us about Santa and the reindeer.  We were thrilled!  So if you are ever in the library and you have a little time.  Please feel free to read Percy and I a story.

Enough with the Cold

I don't know if you've noticed but it's cold!  Now I know that everyone has been freezing outside and that the temperature has been below zero (Miss Renee tells us all this stuff).  But it hasn't been all that warm and cozy in the library either.  Maybe you haven't noticed, but the children's room of the library is on the chilly side.  Now while you human beings can put on a coat or a sweater to keep warm, there isn't much that Kyp and I can do.  So when we're cold you'll notice we tend to sit more and fluff out all our feathers.  It makes us look like little puffy balls.  Plus we're not as active when we're cold.  Can you imagine having cold bare feet all the time - it's not fun!  

Well, we're lucky.  Miss Renee noticed that we weren't really active and that we were always fluffed up, so she and Miss Sue got busy looking for a solution.  At first they tried turning up the heat in the children's section but that didn't do much to keeping the chill away.  So solution number 2 was to find a way to heat the cage.  Miss Renee looked into getting a heat lamp for us, but she was having a hard time finding one that wasn't designed as a floor lamp.  That doesn't help us since our cage is on a counter.  But eventually a heater was found - two in fact.  The first was a heated perch, the wiring went through and made the perch warm so that when Kyp or I sat on the perch it would warm our feet and up into out bodies.  This sounded fantastic!  Unfortunately, when the perch came in it was huge - way to big for our little cage.  The other option was a heating pad that could be attached to the side of the cage near our perches and we can snuggle up next to it and get warm.  This was perfect.

So if you're checking out our cage you'll notice a gray panel, that is our heater.  It keeps our cage nice and warm and we're much happier.  We do ask though that you not touch our heater, because well its hot, it won't burn but it's best not to fiddle with it.

So now we are quite the happy pair.  We get all the natural UV sunlight that we need from our lamp, and we're nice and snuggly warm with our new heater.  Miss Renee says that since we've gotten these things we are much more active than ever and we look very healthy.  So while every one else is freezing with the unpredictable weather, Kyp and I are quite content in our little home - though we could use some more veggies or scrambled eggs in our food cups.

Snow Day

Do you know what happens when there is a snow day?  Everything closes, even the library.  We are aware that everyone gets excited for snow days because it means they don't have to go to school and they get to go out and play.

But for us, snow days are lonely.  We spend the day in the library all by ourselves.  No little kids to watch scrunch their faces up to the cage, no staff members to talk to us, no conversations to listen to, or parents to tell us we are pretty.  Just the two of us together.

Now don't think that we're ungrateful - snow days are also a day for us to explore the library.  We get to read books, play with the trains, and even explore the internet.  After all how do you think we get to write this journal.  Plus it gives us a chance to really stretch our wings and fly.  This past snow day we got to sit on the bird house by the window and watch the snow fall and see the squirrel who was very busy.  He kept running to one side of the window and out of sight, but when he came back his cheeks were stuffed.  We weren't sure what he was doing, but guessed he was collecting food.

Another thing we did was ride the shelves.  Its a fun game we've discovered here at this library.  Though Miss Renee has informed us its a bird only game.  We sit on the top of the stacks, one of us pushes the button and flies up to sit and we take a ride as the stack moves.  Its rather fun.  But our favorite thing to do is find a cozy spot to read.  Sometimes we read out loud to each other and sometimes we read to ourselves.  But reading helps the time pass.

We would like to know: what do you do on a snow day?

Answer to our quiz.

Just so you know.
Bird A is Kyp
Bird B is Percy
How can you tell, just look at the tops of  our heads.  Kyp has a big spot and Percy has two little spots.

Can YOU tell us apart?

Time for a quiz!!!  Can you tell Percy and me apart?

Bird A

Bird B

Just put your answer in the comments, and we'll tell you if your right or wrong.

Thank you

Thank you Auntie Pat for our new sandy perch.  Auntie Pat sent this to us for Christmas.  She is a librarian at the Auburn Library  who used to take care of us when Miss Renee was away for vacation.  In fact she still does take care of us.  Before we moved to our new location - the Auburn Library was having a new carpet put in a we couldn't be around the glue.  Miss Renee has a cat at home so we couldn't go home with her.  So Auntie Pat took us home for 2 weeks.  She talked to us and sang to us and even read us stories.  We really enjoyed staying with her.  We're told that she'll bird sit us any time.  But we really appreciate the new perch.  I helps keeps our nails nice and trim and its a great new color.  THANKS AUNTIE PAT!

A Special Treat

So can you guess what our special treat is?

If you guessed scrambled eggs with bird seed you are correct.

Now - I'm sure some of you are saying scrambled eggs?  But yes we do eat scrambled eggs.  Its not unusual for birds to eat eggs.  When baby birds are born, the leftover egg is usually eaten by the parent bird as a way to tidy the nest.  That's why eggshells found in a nest always look so nice.  It is a way to get protein in our diet, as birdseed in general doesn't have all that much.  So next time you sit down to scrambled eggs for breakfast - think of us and maybe try some birdseed with that.  :)