Kiwi, the clown Kiwi, our first parrot, was born in November 1997. He weighs only 72g but has a big personality. He came to our home just after he became independent; his beak was still flesh coloured and his toes were pinkish. Despite the fact that he was parent reared, he was bonded to us so much that he thought he was a human. He had suffered from this identity crisis until Tovi arrived. Now he has his identity back. He thinks that he is a brown-headed parrot! He fell in love with Lala, our female brown-headed. When we mention her name, when he sees her or hears her, he gets very excited. He shakes his head first, then drops food from his foot, jumps around everywhere and calls out to her, 'I love you, Kiwi!!'.

Kiwi loves toys  Kiwi enjoys playing with toys, especially food toys. He loves a challenge. I hang toys in a very difficult place for him to get to. He works at them from all angles and usually cracks them. Notice his long toes. With the toes, he can reach anywhere under the grate in his cage. Mike calls him 'Mr scavenger' or 'Garbage bird'. Kiwi lives up to the name too, he is sometimes found in the rubbish bag. Tricks He would do almost anything for a single grain, and he never becomes too full. So it is very easy to teach him some tricks, especially using his feet, with some treats: shaking hands, juggling a small loop, and combing my hair on my shoulder! Once he learns the tricks, he just keeps on doing them all the time and makes us laugh.  Pictures of Kiwi's tricks

Kiwi is non-stop calling bird. (Click the links to hear Kiwi's voice)
Kiwi talks very clearly.  His favourite words are 'Kiwi, I  love you (55Kb)',  'Kiwi, I love you, xxxx (100Kb)' 'Come here (114 Kb)', 'OK?',  'Hello, Kiwi (32Kb)', 'Good boy', 'Come here, UP (136Kb)' and a couple of Japanese phrases  'O-ha-yo (Good morning)' and 'Yokatta-ne (Isn't it nice?)'  He often says 'Yokatta-ne'(Isn't it nice?) when he is given treats. He has also said other words like 'Bye bye' when I went out, 'Are you all right ?' when I hit my head at the door, but they have disappeared. He uses the words to call his perceived flocks, that is, human friends and feathery friends including wild birds. And now Tovi and Lala learn talking from Kiwi.

Adolescence
Kiwi became terrible at 5 months old, biting all the time, lunging at the finger which fed. He would call me in a cute voice, when I went to his cage, he bit my fingers. He even refused to come out from his cage for a while. This terrible adolescent season lasted 5 months. All of us suffered including himself. Then suddenly he became friendly again as autumn came, as if nothing had happened. This year his hormonal season lasted only two weeks, good for my hands! and even during that time, he remained sweet during his main flying time in the evening.

Among of our birds, Kiwi is the smartest (probably), the healthiest (definitely), and the easiest to look after. He loves being in the cage, eats everything offered (all sorts of veggies and fruits),  comes on command and doesn't bite, except for during breeding time. We are so glad that we tolerated his terrible two stage. During that time, he also learned 'Step back' command, which is very useful if you have a bird who bites the hand feeds. Although I always feel very uncomfortable with wing clipping, I must admit that during the most difficult time I thought of trimming his wings temporally, to stop him attacking my hands in the air. Now I am glad I didn't. I thank Mike who always disapproved of the idea. Kiwi might live up to 16+ years, and the terrible time lasted only some months although it seemed endless at one point. We love Kiwi very much and hope he loves us too.