peep and the bathroom

peep,s favoriteroom is the bathroom. when the door is open she fly,s in .if she hear,s the water ruing from a nother room she come,s right in.peep enjoy,s geting a very toasty butt on the light and toasty feet.peep enjoy,s taking bathe,s with us she get,s very wet.her friend leeloo like,s to take the opportunity to join her.peep loves to hide behind bottles jars and mirrors.

What about Lee-Lu?

Lee-Lu is a Java Rice Sparrow who came along to keep Peep company when she began to get lonely in August 2007.

Lee-Lu & Peep have a relationship somewhat like Pepe Le Peu and the unfortunate cat on Looney Tunes. At first, I thought Lee-Lu had poor boundaries. A close talker, space invader type. As it turns out he really likes Peep and spends a lot of time singing and dancing as a way to win her heart.

Lee-Lu is an excellent singer and dancer, but Peep thinks of him as a "frenemie". They fly around, explore new places, watch videos and take baths together, but sometimes Lee-Lu messes things up by crowding Peep.

Lee-Lu is a serious performer and his music is best inspired by Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Outkast and Oojami. His dance moves have precise rhythms and display his athletic side and shapely legs and feet. I hope to bring you video of an upcoming performance in the near future

Peep's School Day by Sister Bird

peep went to the second grade class at mason rice school two fridays ago.peep rode in her peep mobile it,s her little cage.on the way there peep dipped her tail in her water bowl and her tail got drippy.she went crazy in the class and jumped around in her cage.i talked abut peep and peep caled on people so peep code anser the question,s.

Yum

Peep's favorite word is "yum" and she is an adventurous eater. She often tries whatever foods are around and has gone so far as to eat mascara. This tasted bad and left her with a creepy black beak.
In addition to the usual bird seed, Peep loves to eat raddiccio and celery, meal worms (cause she can make a meal of them) and oranges. She has enjoyed mango mousse at a neighborhood block party, but she was a baby and her palate has probably matured a bit.

A Taste of Liberty

We always intended to let Peep go. After 3 weeks with us, she had begun to eat solid food was was proficient at hopping. We were outside eating breakfast with Peep sitting on her clothes drying rack/bird playpen. Jamie put Peep on branch about 5 feet high in a nearby tree so that she could get accustomed to the real world.

Peep began to explore the branch and hop around. She hopped up to a higher branch about 6 feet high, then 7 feet, and so on. We could see her in the tree top and she began to fly to an adjacent tree, now she was about 50 feet in the air.

I had not planned on her leaving yet; she had only been hopping around for a few days and was eating solids for about 24 hours. I called her name and kept track of her for a few hours while I gardened. Peep flew from tree to tree in the adjacent yards. Other sparrows chased her out of their roosts. Eventually she began to make her hungry baby bird noises. I was in despair, and mad (inappropriately so) at Jamie.

I left for a bit only to find Jamie 40 feet up in the air on the roof when I returned. He was holding onto the chimney with Peep's syringe of baby formula yelling her name and her favorite word "yum-yum". Peep was buzzing Jamie's head trying to land for food. After eight passes she landed and was brought down.

So what did I learn? Birds learn to fly bit by bit. First up, then down and lastly how to land. I always assumed it was a binary process, they take flight and execute aerial dope moves. In the movies, the bird takes off and that's it. They must edit out the part when you are on the roof embracing a chimney, holding a syringe and screaming "Yum-Yum" in an otherwise peaceful scene.

Bird about town

Peep required feedings every 15 to 30 minutes when she was very young. Fortunately, she was highly portable and got to go many places. These included a neighborhood block party, a circus tent raising and flying under the big top, board meetings, dinner parties, an organic wine tasting and visits to the chiropractor with me.

Would these experiences screw up her formative weeks or would Peep thrive in her enriched birdie environment?

Price check in aisle one

Zoe and I were flower shopping at Lowe's this June. There was a nestling sparrow chick fluttering about in the aisle and in danger of being run over. Zoe immediately asked, "can we take it home?" Being prudent, we put the little one under a large shelf to wait to see if a parent would come back and find it. We decided to adopt it when no parents came after an hour.

Zoe carried the chick to the checkout in her hands. It made frequent little noises, hence her name. The cashiers noticed the noises and appeared confused about all this; If we found peep at Lowe's did we have to pay for her? In the end they were unable to scan a bar code on the little bird so they had to give her to us.

On the way home, we stopped at the pet shop to buy baby bird formula and other supplies. Later that day, Peep was fed and curled up in her new nest asleep. Our life was just beginning to go to the birds.........................