Week 12: 1050 Grams (January 28th, 2005)
VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!
Ariel can now stand on our hands.  She is within a week or two of flying as well.
  


Week 13: 950 Grams (February 5th, 2006)

Well it is now February 4th, 2006 and this will be the last update for awhile.  Ariel has now fledged (no video of that though) and is down 100 grams from last week.  Our little girl is growing up quickly.  By all present indications she is a sweet, noisy, inquisitive bird.  I know her personality will really develop once she is around 6 months old and may change but so far she is a doll. Jen and I will now resume our normal lives on the weekends and spend both days hiking, climbing, skiing, sightseeing, etc so we will only visit every other week.  Also, since Ariel is not going to go through much more in the way of physical changes, other than a darkening of her lower beak, a lengthening of her tail, and an increase and weight and length I am only going to update once a month from now on.  We are really looking forward to bringing her home but since that could be anywhere from 2 to 9 months, dependent on her weaning age, we figure we need to slow the updates and visits down (the aviary is 1 hour away from us).


Here Is Our Baby Girl





Here is her new cage which is fully stocked with toys.  All of this stuff is made from bottlebrush wood which has a bark that is fun for parrots to chew and a core that is softer than manzanitta but hard enough to be resilient.  I've got Merlin behind my work area and Ariel next to it, I'm not sure if two macaws is good for concentration but I'll soon find out.



Here is her new gym (Merlin volunteered to model it) also from Wayne.




Week 17: 860 Grams (March 5th, 2006)

Ariel is one little Greenwing.  Right now she is very friendly and calm.  She hasn't spoken yet but I personally don't care if a bird talks or not.  Today marks her 4 month birthday and she is 120 days old.  She plays with dry food and eats her vegetables but is still being hand fed twice a day so we are expecting several more months before she comes home.  Our aviary has a policy not to let any bird go until it has been eating on its own for at least two weeks.  Ariel is being harness trained right now so hopefully she'll accept it from us when we bring her home.  





       Week 18: 860 Grams (March 12th, 2006)
VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!
It has been quite interesting watching our little girl grow up.  In the beginning we were told that our visits, prior to her fledging, would have little to no effect on her interaction with us after she had fledged.  Apparently they are just to young to care earlier on in life.  After fledging she went through a 1 month period where all she cared about was flying.  Now she has settled down some and it is at this point that she will start to notice and interact with t he world around her in ways that are more meaningful to her personality development.  The fact that our prior visits meant little was made clear by her apparent lack of memory of us when we visited last week.  Fortunately for us she remained a clam, sweet bird.  This week she was much quicker to warm to us and was very comfortable interacting with us.  We were able to scritch her until she drooped one wing down and went to sleep.  She is also quite funny, if we try to take her away from a toy she make a silly guttural growl but never goes beyond this.  I think she can be the Sub-Woofer in our house, Merlin is much higher pitched.  I have updated a bit more quickly this time so as to add a video of her. Enjoy.



Ariel, Page 3

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