I caught Frank this afternoon, and his foot looked fine. Plus, he bit me in two different places, and raised quite a welt. No attempt at pictures, you'll have to take my word for it that he was feisty and ready to go. So, after smearing his foot one last time with medication, I put him back into the Finsterium. He and Sally spent the rest of the evening together, although at the moment Frank is sleeping on top of a nest box, and Sally is standing on one foot on the perch. Maybe I'll have to catch her and check out her toes.

Frank got me good this time! The white bits in the center of the green circles are welts from Frank's bites — really.

I dunno...either I have to get a better camera, or wait until Frank manages to draw blood.

I caught Frank this afternoon for his second application of antibiotic ointment, and was attacked. This is a good sign — he must be feeling pretty well if he's biting me. I finished looking him over and let him go, convinced he'd torn a piece of skin from my knuckle — albeit a small piece of skin — and would forever be a threat, having acquired a taste for human flesh. But when I let him go, there wasn't a sign of blood, and barely even any swelling. Despite the time spent with the camera and Photoshop, I can't make this picture show conclusive evidence of Frank's destruction. That white dot in the center of the circle might be a bit of skin torn free, but I'm not even sure I believe my story at this point.

Frank is back eating tasty seeds now.

Frank has been standing on one foot a few too many times lately, so after waiting until he got over the worst of the molt, I decided it was time to ask Bruce to catch him. That happened last night after dark, with the aid of a small flashlight and a bird-friendly net. As I'd feared, he had two owies on his left foot; one on the underside where the toes meet, and another at the base of the back toenail. The one at the toenail was probably caused by those overlong nails (despite the concrete perches), but it's hard to say about the other one. Neither of the owies was too bad, so I slathered his foot with Neosporin, did a quick toenail trim, and popped him in the hospital cage. He'll stay there until the sores are healed, probably just a few days, with one application of Neosporin per day.

This is the first time someone has been in the hospital cage since Peanut got his new play gym. I was at the computer, and Peanut was snacking on the gym, when Frank started eating seeds. Peanut heard the crunching of seed hulls, so I picked him up and brought him over to the hospital cage to see Frank. I took him back to the play gym when it looked like he might climb onto the cage and disturb Frank, but Peanut was just too interested. He flew toward the hospital cage, but ended up on the shelf above it.

Frank is still going through a terrible molt. Just when I think he can't look any worse, he goes ahead and does it! I've tried twice to take more pictures, but stopped trying since 1) for some reason, my camera won't focus on him (!?!); and 2) I don't want to stress him out too much. The Finsters don't mind at all if I open the big door to give them food, but they still get upset when I take pictures. Maybe it's that annoying flash. Frank and Sally are particularly skittish. Frank is already under stress going through the molt, I don't want to stress him out more with the camera, so: no photos. Take my word for it, although he's finally on the upswing, he still looks terrible.

However, at 9 am EDT, April 17, 2003, Frank sang his Hunka Hunka Burning Love song. Twice. This means he's finally feeling a little better. Good news! He's also stopped sleeping on his nest box all the time, and has started messing with my head by standing on one foot. (Is that an owie on that foot, Frank? Let me look at you....)

Millet, millet, sitting there

Will a Finster ever care?

Will a Finster ever dare?

Peanut needs to get his wing feathers trimmed, but since the weather in Michigan has been unseasonably cold, I've had to put it off. One of his favorite flying games is to fly in tight little half circles in the kitchen, from one section of the Finsterium to the next. He was doing this while I was making toast (and no, I shouldn't make toast while Peanut is out in the kitchen), and he was flying toward me to land on my head just when the toast popped up. Woops! He flew in a big loop around the living room, landed on the very edge of his house, leaned forward, and stopped moving clutching onto his house, face down. Yikes. I scooped him up in my hand, told him he was fine, and closed him up in his house, nice and safe.

This is why bird's wing feathers should be trimmed. We're just waiting for warm weather.

Technically speaking, a computer keyboard is not a play gym, but Peanut really seems to like sitting on it. We've spent a bit of time playing "chase the finger" while he's sitting there, and this photo shows him all puffed up and comfy, as if he's about to fall asleep. But hey! He could poop there, and that would be a bad thing. So far, I've tried to convince Peanut that a keyboard is a valid place to be on the way to his new play gym, but I'm not sure he's learned the lesson yet. He was tooling around the living room the other day when he hopped onto the keyboard in that room, chirping away, biting at the keys.

On April 4 five years ago, Frank, Sally, and Peanut came into my life. I was at a local bird show, Frank and Sally were two of a dozen or so White-Headed Nuns in a cage, all scared and flighty. As I recall, I asked the seller to try to get a male and female, but with all the fluttering going on in that small cage, it's something of a miracle that I walked away with Frank and Sally.

Peanut, as I believe I mentioned, was an impulse purchase. Do not buy birds on an impulse! This isn't fair to you or the birds. But as it turned out, Peanut got lucky. Not only did I "save" him from a family with three boys under the age of ten, I am now also completely under Peanut's power. He is so totally spoiled, I can't ever get a full time job again. Ever.

Frank is going through a terrible molt. I don't think I've ever seen him look this ragged, usually it's Sally who looks poorly during a molt. I'm including a photo of Frank at his best, to remind everyone how handsome he usually is. You can click here for a close-up of Frank that shows his almost-bare cheek. I've been giving the Finsters a lot of egg food, since protein helps birds going through a bad molt. But I don't think I've ever seen Frank eat egg. I hope he makes it through okay. He hasn't been singing his Hunka Hunka Burning Love song lately, which shows how poorly he's feeling.

The bird-friendly liquid calcium arrived today. I was going to take a picture of the delivery guy, but decided that was a little over-the-top. No new eggs since the last, either hard- or soft-shelled, so we should all be safe with a few straight days of calcium in the water. This is a big relief.


Meanwhile, since it's been ten days since the insertion of the plastic Evil Nest Box, with no Finster activity at all, I've added a new F.A.D. For those of you new to the concept of a Finster Attraction Device, this is a highly-desirable object, usually in the form of millet spray (as is the case here), designed to attract the Finsters to a new, apparently Evil object. F.A.D.s have worked in the past, we'll just have to wait and see.