Today our darling Elmo boy is 11 years old. Can you believe it?!

“Happy Hatchday, Elmo!!”

We’ve had Elmo for 3 years now, however, it feels like we’ve known and lived with him for longer. He’s such an integral part of our family that it’s hard to imagine what our life was like before him.

We woke up to a very happy pigeon on the bedside table, cooing and wing twitching with joy as he saw that we were awake and available to give him his morning hug. Then it was time for his presents: A knitted pigeon and a jar of pine nuts!

Elmo's hatchday presents

Elmo received a card from his original mum, as well as a card from us. I knitted the pigeon for Elmo (the pigeon is Cooey pigeon from Stitch London) and I think Elmo enjoyed playing with him (*ahem* pecking him *ahem*) very much, as you can see from the video:

We’ll be showering Elmo with even more love and affection today, and I’m sure he’ll be sick of all the cuddles and treats he receives by the end of the day.

Elmo tucking into the pine nut jar

Georgie girl has a fetish for one of my pyjama bottoms. If I’m wearing them and lounging on the sofa on a lazy Saturday morning Georgie will always come over and peck at them for hours. She only does this behaviour to this pyjama, and I don’t know why.

She pecks and pecks and it looks to me as if she thinks it’s edible. If I put her somewhere else she’ll find her way back to me and my pyjamas. Obsessive or what?!

Maybe I should make a teddy bear out of them for her so she can have it in her cage for company – seeing as she likes the material so much (is it the pattern? Or the texture?).

In other news, Elmo’s moult has reached his head and he was a bit bald looking for a while. Now new feathers are growing through and he looks like this:

He looks like a pin cushion!!

Just now I took a few photos of Georgie on the floor. She was standing there pecking at the air – completely in a world of her own – and surprisingly she didn’t respond to the camera light going on as I took photos of her (I disabled the flash though because I know that that would definately snap her out of her daydreaming).

So there I am, lying on my stomach, snapping away when these appear in front of the camera:

Elmo just has to be involved in everything that happens in our home!!

I tried to shoo him away but he just kept running over to me, cooing and prancing about like the little attention seeker he is! At one point he tried to mate with the camera! Silly boy.

Not happy with me ignoring his advances Elmo then proceeds to claim me by jumping onto my back and dancing up and down.

Pigeons can be so demanding!!

Ps. Georgie’s eye looks better. She’s no longer closing it and it doesn’t look dry. Yay!

Some days Georgie makes my life very uncomfortable. The other day I was happily snuggled up on the sofa with George on my lap – also snuggled and content – when Richard accidentally put his mobile phone near her with the screen was lit and she instantly turned into a devil-pigeon: Her feathers puffed out, her eyes hardened, and she wing slapped the hell out of the mobile phone. If I hadn’t been so concerned for Georgie’s mental health it would have been quite funny.

As already mentioned (in Camera shy? and other posts) Georgie has an intense dislike for cameras, video recorders, mobile phones and earphones. If I have her on my lap whilst texting or listening to music with earphones on Georgie will start pecking and slapping the devices angrily (she’ll also grab the earphone cable and shake it vigorously, ultimately dislodging them from my ears). Often she’ll make contact with my hands and arms instead of the despised device so it can make my life very uncomfortable indeed.

I guess George’s technophobic.

Strangely, she doesn’t mind the TV or computers. At least so far we haven’t seen her launch an attack on them, but maybe she’ll decide that she’s tolerated the machines enough and will try to get rid of them. … Try explaining that to the home insurers?!

Today at work I introduced two juvenile pigeons to one another that had been housed seperately until we were sure they were physically fine. One is younger than the other and when I put them together they were at first scared of each other. It was quite sweet how they tried to intimidate the other by puffing their feathers up and lifting their wings ready to wing slap if the other got too close. After a few moments of scared behaviour they realised that neither one was a threat and they relaxed. Then the younger pigeon started squeaking and flapping its wings in welcome and excitement at the older pigeon. In no time both pigeons were squeaking and waggling their wings at each other and gently pecking at each other’s beaks and face. It was so sweet. Two lonely young pigeons now paired together until they are ready to go into an aviary with other juvenile pigeons waiting for release. A good introduction melts my heart, especially when you can see how quickly their behaviours change from scared to friendship (and even love!). Aaah!

Elmo is a pigeon in every way. The head bobbing when he walks the cooing the bowing and the tail dragging. He’ll sit in his corner and preen himself happily. He does everything you’d expect a pigeon to do.

That is, until he plucks a feather. He’ll stare at the feather laying on the floor expecting it to attack him at any moment. He’ll peck at it viciously making sure it’s dead. Once, I’ve even seen him run away from a feather on the floor.

This pigeon is very confused.

Would a blind pigeon be able to tell the difference between two people’s laps? Regardless of what they are wearing?

Well, Georgie certainly can. My wife likes to wear my fleece. Regardless of who is wearing it, or how you interact with her, she knows who’s who. My wife gets preened, and Georgie snuggles up to her, while I on the other hand get viciously attacked!

Elmo allowed us to sleep in a little later than normal this morning. We finally rose at around 10:30am to Elmo’s furious cooing. He was so happy and proud that his persistent wishing paid off and we finally moved! We opened the window to get some fresh air. Our bedroom in the new flat overlooks our large, secluded garden, which we absolutely love, and so does Elmo.

After a few minutes stretching his legs Elmo, very inquisitively stares out the window, which is my sign to get trousers, shoes, coat, etc on and take him walkies!!! He loves being outside (at least when it’s not covered in snow), he pecks at dirt, and enjoys the wind through his feathers.