I'm worried about Buckbeak, the new parakeet. He's very quiet. He remains as gentle and calm as ever....but I'm worried he's a little too quiet. He's not making that "content bird noise" that parakeets make, a kind of "manamanamana" sound as if under their breath. Maybe I'm just seeing him when he's tired - I suppose most animals are used to sleeping when it's been dark for hours and hours.

Of course, he DID discover the ficus tree. We let him out in the living room and he flew right into the ficus and stayed there. We let him stay there, 'cause we figured, hey, it's a bird it's a tree, it's a match!

We played the radio for him all day. Maybe the news depressed him. It depressed me. If this keeps up it wouldn't surprise me at all to come home one day and have the bird say "Stem cell research! Iraq! Iraq! Iraq!" We put the video Winged Migration on the dvd player, but that seemed to freak him out.

The whole time I keep thinking the poor bird probably feels like he's been kidnapped by alians. He keeps looking at Winston as if he's trying to figure out why we have a cow in the house.

Maybe we changed the location of his cage too many times.

Maybe his cage is too small for him.

Maybe he needs a girlfriend.