i had a little scare tonight..i came home to find what i think was blood on his beak. with the "tick" he was exhibiting on the weekend, going to the vet yesterday and now THIS...it freaked me out. so i took pictures of the blood and showed them to the mickaboo amazon coordinator to see what i should do next.

well, if i was thinking correctly, i should've realized that it probably wasn't anything if there were no other traces of blood in or around the cage. he does have rather long nails and could've easily scratched himself a little too hard. i looked all over his cage and found no other drops of blood, so any opened wound he might have made was probably very shallow. i will keep a close eye on him. i am still waiting on the results of the tests the vet did yesterday...

i tried to lure zeba on to my arm today with pieces of walnut. no success tonight, but as you can see from my pictures, i was able to lure him on my leg with a piece of walnut. that's not bad - not what i had planned, but im happy with that.

my husband also spent some time with zeba and he seems to be doing well with zeba, as long as zeba stays in the cage, and probably when i am out of the room. it is spring season and hormones are raging among all birds in this house, so zeba probably just wants me to himself. i think i will have my husband be the source of all nuts so that zeba looks forward to his presence. i will have to use something else to pursuade him to step up on to my arm.

oh, i DID have some success with target training. with target training, i use a wooden chopstick with a round wooden ball attached to one end. i then ask zeba to "touch" the wooden ball. he did this a couple times and i rewarded him with lots of praise and a piece of walnut. he learns so quickly! i hope to be able to use this to get him to step up on my arm...we'll see.

have i also shared with you that when zeba talks and he is in his cage, he loves to hang upside-down? he's a funny talkative acrobat bird! :-)