Tiel Monthly? No!

Dear Friends, I have to apologize for temporarily turning Tiel Weekly into Tiel Monthly! The Tall One's computer broke, and she had to send it away to be fixed. She said it had something called a warranty, but it took a very long time for it to come back. She was very mad at the computer store, because at first, they forgot to send it and just left it in the back of the store, and when they finally sent it to be repaired, they sent it to California instead of to the place in Illinois where it needed to be fixed. It took over a month!!! She would have let me use her old computer to blog, but it is so old that Tiel Weekly would not even load correctly on it!

The laptop is fixed now, but the Tall One said that a lot of the programs and files are gone, and she needs to reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything, so it may be a few more days until I can get back to you. Needless to say, I was not happy about it, because I love blogging and getting to know all of you. I know the Tall One is very smart, though, and I'm sure she will be able to get our laptop to work again.

In the meantime, I have been very busy exploring the cage. The Cool One hung up a bell in it, and I love to ring it! I finally managed to tear the string and make the bell fall to the bottom of the cage, and I like to throw it around. I also like the echo it makes when I sing to it. It is so much fun to sing, and the Tall One enjoys it! She whistles back at me and tells me to sing some more. She is gone most of the day now to the place she calls work, but when she's home, she plays with me, and the Cool One comes over a lot and holds me upside down!

As soon as the Tall One is done getting our laptop back to the way it is supposed to be, I will update you on all the things that have been going on in the meantime! I hope all of you are well!

Carrera

My Tall One

My Tall One has been back for over a week, and I am so happy! I love to walk around on her and preen her hair. She is home most of the day now, and I enjoy spending time with her. I don't like it when she leaves the room, though; I scream for her, and if the cage door is open, I go looking for her. Sometimes she goes into her small room with the shiny piece of glass where she can see herself. When she does, I tried to land on the little cabinet shelf in front of it. The problem is that she has little containers and other strange things on it, and they are in the way, so I knock them down with my wings. She does not get upset, though, she just picks me up and talks to me. She also knows how to scratch the back of my neck. Carrera doesn't know that yet, so I have to teach him!

Quality Tiel Time

I am so happy the Tall One is back! She is there almost all the time, and she lets us sit on her shoulders and preen her hair! I really enjoy it. I also like flying on top of the bookshelf and shredding the magazines she has there. The Cool One has been coming over a lot, too, and he holds me upside down! At first, I did not know what to think about that, but now I enjoy it!

The Tall One is Back!

To be honest, I had almost forgotten about the Tall One, because the Cool One took such good care of us, and she has been gone quite a long time. She came back with her huge blue boxes on wheels, and she has been spending a lot of time with us since then. It's so nice to have a human around all day! I've been singing happily, and she has been admiring my beautiful voice.

This morning, she took some pictures of Miss Prissy and me while we walked around on the shelf. She has statues of a cookaburra and a lorikeet that are about our size, so here are some pictures of Aussie birds, real and fake:

I knew he was just a fake, but I still didn't like the way he looked at me with his long beak!

So I showed him who the boss is!

The Tall One had to rescue him from me by taking him away! Ha! I showed him!

In Memory of J.L. LeMone

It has been a month, dear friends, that J.L. passed away. Even though I never met him, I know him through his posts and Miss Prissy´s recollections, and I feel very sad today. I hope you all remember him today, and always.

Cage, Sweet Cage

I really love my cage, and now that Miss Prissy shares it with me, I don´t really want to leave it. The Cool One comes to spend time with us, and I enjoy riding on his shoulder, but after a while I want to get back to my nice home. It is so much nicer than the old one I used to live in, and the food dish is huge! The Cool One makes sure the dish is always filled, and he gives us treats, too. It is so nice to have a good home, a nice human around, and a beautiful cockatiel lady nearby. Not to mention all the sunshine we get! I´m so happy, I sing a lot. I hope Miss Prissy enjoys it.

Time Together

I really like the pretty cockatiel girl, now that she is not preoccupied with the pink things anymore. I like her name, too: Miss Prissy. She has been paying attention to me the last couple of days, which makes me really happy. The Cool One put us both on top of her cage so we could share some millet spray, and she was very friendly. She did not try to bite or chase me at all.

Later, she flew onto my cage with me, and when the Cool One put both of us in there, I invited her to dinner at my food dish, and she graciously accepted. She has been staying in my cage a lot, and I am so happy that I do not want to leave it, even when the Cool One comes to play with us. I hope we will continue to get along really well.

Tiel Time

The new cockatiel´s name is Carrera, and he is very nice. He even has a nice hunter green cage of his own! I was very interested in it, so I followed him there. My cage is nice, but his is even better, so it did not bother me when the Cool One put both of us in there. The food dish is really big and full of yummy seeds. Carrera and I eat out of it together, and that´s fun. I like having another tiel around.

Hi, everyone!

I have been very busy the last few weeks, but I do not remember why. Anyway, I have some more time now. The Cool One has been coming over and playing with the new tiel and me. (I forgot his name, but he is nice and has pretty feathers.) The food is good, too.

The Cute Cockatiel

The pink things are gone. I think the Cool One took care of them. Now, the cute little cockatiel girl pays more attention to me. I have been preening my feathers to make a good impression. I am hoping she will like my cage and come visit me more often. Maybe she will even join me here. I like company, and Miss Prissy is very pretty.

???

I feel like something is missing, or I am forgetting something. What could it be?

I´m going back to the cage. Maybe I´ll remember when I get there.

Bird Seed, etc.

I love the bird seed the Tall One left for us! I noticed that she got a big plastic tub before she left, and I watched her pour bird seed from different bags in it, along with some colorful tasty things she called pellets (I especially like the green ones). She mixed everything very well. Then, I watched her stack bags of millet spray and honey treats by the tub. I still had some of those in my cage, but I really wanted to try some of the bird seed mix. I did not want to be rude, though. So I was delighted when she filled up my dish with a sample of the mix. It was sooo good! I love the sunflower seeds a lot; they are so big!

Now that the Cool One is taking care of me, he fills up my dish with the yummy birdseed and makes sure I have millet spray to eat. Of course, I eat in a very mannerly fashion, and I chirp my thanks. Miss Prissy, on the other hand, is still too preoccupied with the pink things to thank anyone or really enjoy food. She just gulps it down and returns to the things. I am hoping she will soon be back to the way she was when I first met her. I sing for her quite a bit, but I am not sure if she appreciates it. Well, it probably takes her a while to get used to me. I am a patient bird, so I will wait.

TV Time!

The Tall One left with her blue boxes on wheels. Just like she said, she left Miss Prissy and me in the nice, bright apartment so I could enjoy the sunlight and look out of the window. She had filled up our food and water dishes all the way, so I expected that we would be all alone until the food was almost gone! To my surprise, the Cool One came by very soon after the Tall One's departure, not only once, but twice, to check if we were okay and to play with us!

Miss Prissy did not feel much like having company, but I was happy. The Cool One played with me and made that talking picture box called a TV turn on. I climbed around on him until I got a good viewing spot, and we watched TV together. It's really cool, because there is lots of movement to watch and all kinds of cool noises to listen to! I love TV. I have never seen a TV before until I moved in here. I'm looking forward to watching TV every day with the Cool One!

Eggs

I sit on my pink eggs all day and all night. It's very important. I don't know why. But I know it is.

Exploring

I figured the pretty cockatiel girl had some time to cool off, and since the Tall One had left my cage door open, I decided to pay a visit. I flew over and landed on the side of Miss Prissy's cage; then I climbed up to its top. She gave me a dirty look from her seat on the eggs below, but at least she did not chase me this time. Maybe she is getting used to me. I hope my pretty singing will make a difference.

After a while, I flew around and landed on the top of a picture frame. The Tall One came right away and got me. She is so nice. She does not leave me stuck in a place; she helps me out, and she does not scold me. She put me on her shoulder, and I climbed on the top of her head. I like to play with her curly hair. It's fun to stick my head in it and sort her hair with my beak. She likes when I do that. She told me J.L. used to do that a lot, and it makes her feel better. I think we will get along really well!

My New Life

I have been spending a lot of time in my new cage, even though the Tall One usually keeps the door open for me when she's in the room. It is so much fun to nibble on my honey treat, sample the food the Tall One put in my dish, and play with the rope toy. I also like the sounds I can make by clanging my beak against the green bars. I flew about the apartment a few times yesterday, and the Tall One was amazed at how neatly I was able to land on Miss Prissy's cage and on my own.

The pretty cockatiel lady has settled down a bit, but she still does not want to spend any time with me. That's fine, because the Tall One and the Cool One have been playing with me a lot. The best thing is that it's never quiet. I don't like silence, because then I think something is wrong. It was way too quiet in that basement. Here, I hear so many interesting sounds outside. The noise box called the TV is fun, too, and the Tall One talks to me a lot. The Cool One does the same thing on his visits. I love all the attention!

Yummy Millet Spray

I flew on the Tall One's head today. She fed me millet spray. It was yummy. I have to get back to the two pink eggs in the cage now.

News from Carrera

My life has become so exciting! Something new is going on all the time. I noticed today that the Tal One was moving about the apartment a lot and putting soft things she calls clothes into big blue boxes with wheels. She noticed I was wondering about that, and she sat down with me and explained that she will have to be gone for a while. She is from a place called Europe, and she needs to go there to see her family, for a big celebration called a wedding.

She explained that they make different sounds in that place when they talk, and that she will also spend a few weeks helping a group of young humans from America to get to know the place and learn to make those sounds. I got all excited, because I want to learn to say people sounds, and I did not know there were different kinds. I wanted to come along and learn the different sounds, too, but she said she could just teach them to me here when she got back. I am looking forward to that!

At first, I was afraid she would take me back to that dark basement, but she said she loved me very much already, and she would never put Miss Prissy or me into a dark place. She said we would stay right here in the apartment, and the Cool One would come by every day to feed us and play with us. That made me very happy. I like the Cool One a lot. He plays with me and holds me. I know he won't just fill the dish and leave me like the human in my old place. We'll be spending some fun time together every day, and I will have lots of sunshine in the apartment. I won't have to leave my new cage with the fun toys and food, either!

How nice of the Tall One to ask him to look after us, and how nice of the Cool One to agree! I am looking forward to getting to know him better. He is so nice! The Tall One said she was going to take her laptop with her, but that we could use her old computer to blog if we wanted to. And she said she would be spending a lot of time with me once she got back and teach me to say people sounds. I'm going to have such an exciting time here!

Hi, everyone! I'm Carrera the Cockatiel.

Wow! This has been the most eventful week in my entire life, and there are more and more new things happening every day.

Just a few days ago, I was sitting in a dim basement room, upset that my cockatiel buddy had been taken away by some strangers. To be honest, I hoped it would be my turn next, because there was not much going on, and I felt alone. The human came every day and fed me, but other than that, I was bored all day long.

Suddenly, the room door opened, and the human came in with two human visitors. I was hoping they would get me out of there, and I was happy that the dark-haired one (I think it's the human you know as "The Cool One") picked me up. I had been picked up a lot when I was handfed as a baby, and I had enjoyed that a lot, but that had been a long time ago. The nice visitor put me on the other one's hand (I think you call her "The Tall One", which is very fitting, because she is taller than any human I ever met before). She put me on her shoulder, and I preened her curly hair for a while. It was so much more fun than playing with a toy!

Then she handed me back to the Cool One, and she left the room. I was afraid I would be left behind, but she came back after a short time with a little cage, and the Cool One put me in it. They carried me out in the sunlight and put me in a big blue box they called a car. They both got in, too, and the thing moved for a long time. I was all excited about the ride. It was so much fun!

At the place they call "the apartment", I saw a big white cage. The Cool One put me on the porch, and a beautiful sprinkled cockatiel emerged. She walked all around me and looked at me from all angles, inspecting every one of my feathers. I had never seen such a pretty and confident tiel before, and I was a bit shy around her. We got along well, though, sharing the food and water dishes, and even sleeping on the same perch. One time, we beak-sparred a little bit while sitting on the Cool One, but it was all in friendly fun.

You would not believe all the things in this apartment! There are tasty treats they call millet spray and honey treats, there is plenty of sunlight that comes through big windows, and there are all kinds of sounds from birds and people outside. There is a big box that shows pictures and sounds (the Tall One calls it a TV), and a smaller one that can be moved around and is called a computer or a laptop. Every time I chirp or sing, the Tall One responds to me happily. Instead of telling me to be quiet, she enjoys my singing and encourages me to continue. It's an amazing new world!

Yesterday, though, something very strange happened. I had just fallen back asleep after singing my good morning song, when I suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my tail feather. It was the pretty lady cockatiel, and she was trying to pull my feathers out! I climbed away from her, but she kept chasing me. At first, I thought she just wanted to play, but she got more and more vicious, until in the end she flew upwards, trying to peck at me, and she finally chased me out of the cage altogether. She sat in the doorway and looked at me as if she was saying: "And stay out!!!"

I looked at the Tall One for help. I did not know what I had done to make that pretty girl turn psycho on me, but I certainly did not want to go back in that cage. The Tall One put me on her shoulder, and we left the cage to the crazy bird for a while. Sure enough, after just a few minutes, a pink round thing appeared under her, and she moved it around until she finally sat down on it, giving the Tall One and me dirty looks. That was definitely too weird for me, so I hung out with the Tall One on the couch. We watched the moving pictures on the TV, and I ate bird seed out of her hand.

A little later, the Tall One explained to me how her computer worked. She showed me this blog and read me all of J.L.'s posts. I never met J.L., but he must have been one cool bird. He described the pink things as the source of lots of trouble, and he was certainly right. About halfway though the posts, I started to recognize some words, and by the end, I had figured out how this reading and writing thing works. I went ahead and typed out some words on the keyboard. She was impressed at how fast I learned, and she told me that she had hoped for Miss Prissy and me to take over the blog. Since Miss Prissy is, to put it mildly, busy with other things at this point, I let her know that I was certainly willing to give it a try. So, here is my first post!

When the Cool One came, he played with me for a while, then they put me in the small cage they had brought me in. I was glad to be left alone in the small cage instead of attacked in the big one, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, the Tall One and the Cool One were back with a pretty grey and green cage. I chirped in excitement, hoping it would be for me, and it was! That made four cages in as many days, but this one was by far the nicest one, with large dishes full of food and water, a honey treat, millet spray, a cuttlebone, and a toy. I was so happy when she put me inside, and I tried all the different things out. I'm happy now! Miss Prissy can keep the other cage, and if she wants to spend time with me, she'll have to visit me in my new home!

Here is a picture of me eating birdseed in my new cage last night. It's a bit dark, because it was in the evening. You should see it now; it's very bright! I'll have to ask the Tall One to take more pictures during the day.

Here I am on the perch in the new cage. Look at the honey treat, the mineral bone, and the cuttlebone in the background! I am so lucky!

Well, that's it for today. I'm looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Carrera

Introducing Carrera

I would like to introduce the new member of our little flock: Carrera the Cockatiel.

Carrera is a 15-month-old pied cockatiel. He flies as fast as a race car and sings as beautifully as an opera singer. For the past year, he spent his time in a basement room with one cockatiel buddy, away from high traffic or family areas.

He loves his new home, especially the sunlight. Every morning, he greets the rising sun with a beautiful song. He likes to look out of the window at trees, birds, dogs, and people, and he chirps when he hears other birds singing outside. Carrera is a quick learner who likes to try new things out right away. He especially loves millet spray and honey treats, which seem to be new to him, and he shows great interest in the telephone, the TV, and the computer.

Carrera likes to make new friends. He loves to sit on the Cool One's finger, and he enjoys sitting on my shoulder. He will make a great addition to the family and Tiel Weekly. Welcome, Carrera!