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!!!
My budgies asked when they can come visit . . . very nice! I’d like to live there myself!
That’s the trouble with aviaries. There’s always someone dropping in.
djm
Hi Lamby! Our budgies send greetings to your budgies!
I remember you talking a while ago about an awful haircut and how you are hoping it will grow back quickly. We have found that if you let the little birdies poop on your head it acts as fertilizer and it makes your hair grow really fast 
And if you get an extra big dose, it actually enhances your brain and gives you a fertile imagination!
One thing I have always lamented about the animal kingdom is that God did not make red budgies. Red budgies would be so cool. It seems all kinds of parrots are red (even cockatiels, there are pink ones), but not budgies. It makes me sad.
The basic color for wild budgies is green with a smattering of yellow, and from this we have selectively bred all the budgie color variations. There is no gene for red. God may have made a red budgie originally, but if he did, he wasn’t thinking very far ahead, because he also made hawks and gave them pretty good color vision. The red budgies would have stood out and probably got eaten, while the green ones would have lurked unseen in the foliage. I imagine hawks were popping those little red suckers off like Pez.
That’s the problem with deities – They just aren’t very good at foreseeing the consequences of their actions. If they were, they never would have created Anopheles mosquitoes, Musca domestica, or College Republicans.
OOooooo…feather boas are way cool. Right up there with bubble wrap on my list of favorite things 
::skipping off to see if there’s anymore of the pink bubble wrap in the broom closet::
Dude! Don’t get my thread locked!! 
One of our cockatiels is named Gonzo. He’s named that because when we got him he kept whistling something that sounded a lot like the theme song of the Muppets show. But I can see now that he was very well named, for he truly is Pope of the aviary 
Good grief, why not? I’ve been trying for weeks now to get Nano or Joseph to lock one of mine. To no avail of course, but I have been trying
See? I told you I’m a rabble rouser 
A rabble rouser in a flouncy straw hat and a feather boa!
Izz you are a true model of empowered femininity! :impressed:
To be fair, being a red-colored bird does not mean you’re going to be eaten by a hawk. I mean, the redbird is a red bird. 
I wish you could have these in your aviary. But I’m nearly certain it’s illegal to own them…
Here’s a google search for “red bird” to prove my point: http://images.google.com/images?um=1&tab=wi&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SUNA_enUS221US221&q=red+bird
Chirp, chirp.
Here’s what I can think of that has red, that’s not a parrot-type bird, and that can be kept in captivity. These are from the National Finch and Softbill Society website. A good group, and I learned a lot from their forum, but they aren’t as friendly as the Chiffies.
http://www.nfss.org/Birds/Species/Softbill/Cardinals/RC-Card.html
Peter’s Twinspot
http://www.nfss.org/Birds/Species/Finches/Twinspots/TSpot-Pet.html
Black Cheeked Waxbill
http://www.nfss.org/Birds/Species/Finches/Waxbills/Bl-chk-wax.html
All the above birds are too advanced for me to keep
Here’s what I do to satisfy my craving for red…
http://www.logees.com/prodinfo.asp?number=R1482-2
http://www.logees.com/prodinfo.asp?number=R2506-4
That first cardinal has ugly feet.
Are Gouldians never red?
True – not all red birds get eaten by hawks, but then, not all red birds are a dumb as budgies.
Don’t take this wrong – I like budgies. There are budgies all over my house. I like to watch them and listen to their little chirps. They are very likeable little birdies.
But they are also barely brighter than the perches they sit upon.
Yes, I know they can be taught to do cute little tricks and to speak human-sounding words, but so can sorority girls and telemarketers and even the odd ecclesiastic.
Surely this narrative is more nuanced, more evocative, more Joycean than anything most humans could come up with…
What I especially like about budgies is the way they swear. When they are scolding it sounds like they are saying sht! sht! SH*T!!
…but so can sorority girls and telemarketers and even some ecclesiastics.
OK, I grant you that
I just found this one- birds are so amazing. All the cockatiel videos made me think of the one we had. I sure miss that funny little birdie. He was a great talker and singer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOK9rdLJwAw&mode=related&search=
Are you saying that some people call cardinals “redbirds”? I was just wondering. I’ve never heard that around here. It’s the only all-red bird we have, so it wouldn’t really be confusing I guess. I recently had a very confusing conversation with someone who said he had seen a bluebird, which he accented on the first syllable, at his feeder. I got all excited and was quizzing him and saying I thought that was very unusual (for around here). Well, it turns out he meant a bird that was blue. He said it was pretty big so I’m pretty sure it was a blue jay, which is very common in town. Not being one to fuss over small details, he finally said to just leave it at he saw a bird .
Yes. Maybe not in Iowa, but in a lot of other places. If you say “cardinal” you will be understood, but you will also be thought of as a foreigner.
More birds on You Tube
David Attenborough and several species of Birds of Paradise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22EZcnYnaIE&mode=related&search=
David Attenborough observing a bowerbird
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA
David Attenborough, from his series The Life of Birds. (We have this on DVD, it’s excellent!!! 
)
The superb lyrebird-- an amazing mimic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y
This is the lyrebird footage again, but this time w/ commentary from the photographer and David Attenborough himself. Attenborough says that the bird was imitating the sounds of his forest being cut down-- “singing of his own doom”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuFyqzerHS8&mode=related&search=
You should have Eastern bluebirdsall over Iowa during the summer.
They are not large birds, though, so I’ll bet your are right about the one your friend saw being a blue jay.
They do, according to the article, prefer open grasslands, so they may be rare in town.
Other bluebirds here.