Peanut just got 30 minutes of Bird Ruffles. Thirty. Minutes. Straight. I indulged him because I'm kinda curious to see how long he'd sit for it. But come on — half an hour? Even I agree that's a little ridiculous, and I'm the Bird Goddess.

Stopping after 30 minutes was not Peanut's idea. This is Peanut trying to climb back down to my hand after I unceremoniously put him on my shoulder. Because 30 minutes is not enough. Apparently.

On August 17, 2006, Peanut discovered the joys of scritches, better known as Bird Ruffles.

We call them Bird Ruffles because you are literally ruffling the bird's feathers: you gently lift them up until they're standing straight up, move them from side to side a little, and then pat them down again. I've ruffled Peanut's feathers before, usually in conjunction with Warm Toasties, preening (when you gently pinch the feather's sheath to break it away), and petting his head (known as Bird Noodles) (I don't know why). But this is the first time he's relaxed, closed his eyes, squeaked, and twisted his tiny little head around so I could get to the best spots. You can click here for a really big version of this picture because RUFFLES ARE THE BEST THING SINCE TASTY SEEDS.

Peanut seems to be on the mend. Oh, he still does a lot of sleeping, but Bruce and I have been careful to interact with him when we can, and in the past few days, he's been up to some of his usual tricks. Like flying around to hunt for seeds, climbing down my arm for drinks from the faucet, and hopping over to Bruce's Knee Of Plenty for a lunch snack. The best part is that Bruce's now-weekly trip out of town didn't change Peanut's behavior this time around.

In fact, I'm beginning to think that his original change in behavior was deliberate. Peanut figured he'd get us all worried, so that we'd give him extra tasty seeds, and Bird Ruffles every day. All day.

You might think I'm joking about the Bird Ruffles — but I'm not. Today he walked down my arm, sat in my hand, and settled in for 20 straight minutes of Bird Ruffles. He didn't want to stop. I guess he's making up for all the years of not getting any.

Peanut had a very hard day yesterday. And so did I. We're doing a bit better today, though.

The worry grew on Monday, when he expressed no interest in Lunch, that Food, Glorious Food Time Of Day. You remember Lunch, right? The meal that has steadily Progressed (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six — and frankly, there's more that I haven't written about) until this small, green bird owns it? He didn't want any. And this, even with Bruce home to join in.

Shocking!

So we went back to the vet's office yesterday. A new clue was a change in the texture of Peanut's beak, and changes in beak tissue are always ominous. So we decided to do some blood work, and see if that would reveal anything. Of course, the vet knew she couldn't get enough blood for everything, so she decided to test for the liver first, and maybe check the kidneys if we were lucky. It might take two blood samples to do both tests (with a week or two between samples). And if those two came back negative, then we'd call Peanut's low activity patterns behavioral, and I'd start growing a beard to try to make up for all of Bruce's traveling.

But that blood test really did Peanut in. He hardly ate anything yesterday, but he drank a lot of water. As a result, by early evening he wasn't pooping, he was just squirting water — and the water wasn't clear, it was tan. I tried very hard to convince myself it wasn't blood, and made a frantic call to the vet. Luckily he ate a sunflower seed while we were on the phone, so we decided it was stress, and that I should give him extra Warm Toasties.

So after a little bit of dinner, and as many sunflower seeds as I could get him to eat (not as many as you'd expect), we settled in for early Warm Toasties.

By the end of the night, he'd stopped squirting so much (ew), and his last poop before bedtime was practically normal. This morning he ate a big breakfast, and even flew around a bit. He still slept much of the day, but his poops have been fine.

Plus, the vet's office called to say that while there wasn't enough blood to do the kidney test, his liver is normal.

Let's hear it for normal.

I'll talk to the vet in the next day or two to figure out what to do next.

I am the lucky owner of a sweet new Apple MacBook, the white kind. Wipe your chins clean of the Drool Of Envy. So far it's quite nice — after all, it's got a thousand more GHz than my last iBook; what could go wrong?

Of course, the real test is which keyboard design is more prone to getting tasty seeds and oat groat squeezin's stuck underneath. (That's the new MacBook on the left, and the old iBook on the right.) I'll let you know.

I'm enjoying the built in video camera and the Photo Booth software. Oh, the camera angle is a little too likely to catch my double chin (ah, the power of cheese; ah, the joys of growing old; damn, look at those chins; damn, damn). But it's handy for spying on Peanut when he's sitting on my shoulder.

He's so small and light, I can't always tell what he's doing. As it turns out, he's often napping. I forgot to turn the computer's sound off when I took the first picture, and the sound effect woke him up. He's ready for Warm Toasties in the second picture. You can see bigger versions of both pictures (they pop): Peanut startled out of sleep, and Peanut ready to go.

It's cherry season, so I cut a few up and put the pieces into the traditional Tasty Snack Dish, and put it into the Finsterium.

It turns out that they're Evil. Pure, Unadulterated Evil. So Evil, in fact, that no Finster ventured to the floor the whole time the dish sat there. So Evil, in fact, that no Finster even ventured onto the lower perch. So, after about ten minutes of Finster Torture, I took the dish out. After another ten minutes or so of Making Sure The Evil Cherry Things Wouldn't Show Up Again And Leap Up To Hit Suspicious Birds On Their Heads, the Finsters finally ventured down for breakfast.

I wasn't going to let those cherry bits go to waste, so — since they were untouched by Finster beaks — I started eating them with a spoon. Peanut came over to help. He decided that the cherry bits were best for flicking into the sink, but that the cherry juice was good for drinking.

So I was surprised when I saw him staring down at his food dish later that day from the safety of his sun porch, which is a good six inches higher than the dish. He spent a little more than a minute on that sun porch, twisting his head so one eye was looking straight down into the dish. Finally, he slowly climbed down and perched on the dish, still looking at the quarter of an Evil Cherry I had put inside. He stared at it, one-eyed, for about a minute, and finally moved his head about a half an inch further into the dish. Then he stared at the Evil Cherry again for a minute. Slowly, he moved his head about a half an inch further into the dish. Then he stared at the Evil Cherry again. He must have spent close to five minutes staring the Evil Cherry into submission before he finally reached down, grabbed the offending fruit with his beak, and flicked it across the cage. Evil.

Turns out that blueberries are Evil, too. But I could have guessed that. They're...round, after all. And...blue. Evil.

I'm still watching Peanut. He's still eating well, and his poops look fine, but he remains less active than usual. And he's picked up a new habit: sometimes when he's eating a seedball he stands on his left foot. He'll stand on both feet as he's reaching for another beakful, but once he has seeds in his mouth he goes back to standing on his left foot. The first time he did this I called the vet and brought him back for another quick look. Nothing.

Well, that's probably good news. But I'm still watching.

Now, there's one event I didn't mention last time, which is that Bruce has been away — on the longest trip away from home in awhile. I'm beginning to think this is the underlying factor behind Peanut's change in behavior.

I recently came across the article "Understanding Feather Plucking in Parrots" by Roy A. Earle & Louise Prowse. The article suggests that a bird will start plucking its feathers when "something has gone wrong in the house flock which has upset the stability and probably also the perceived hierarchy structure in the flock." Now, Peanut isn't plucking his feathers, but he has changed his behavior. The article also talks about which creature a bird might consider to be dominant in a household. I'm guessing Peanut thinks he's on top — well, he is the Master of the Universe, and all. But I'll bet that he considers Bruce to be over me in the hierarchy. Oh, sure, we both feed him snacks, but I feed Peanut his regular meals, free of charge. Peanut has to win tasty seeds from Bruce by yelling, lunging at him, and some serious Mind Control.

So it doesn't surprise me that Peanut has been thrown by having the dominant human away from the house for so long. Unfortunately, Bruce will be doing a lot more traveling in the next few months. We'll see what happens.

The Environmental News Network published a story on August 3 about the status of pets in parts of Israel right now. Obviously, they're not doing too well. The animal welfare organization Hakol Chai is doing what they can to help pets that were left behind. Some pets were left with Hakol Chai by people who couldn't take the animals with them. Others were abandoned in the upheaval. Some volunteers still in Israel's northern towns have been patrolling the streets to help feed animals. And animal welfare organizations have put posters up asking people who are still around to put water containers on the streets and to contact them when they see animals in distress. See "Israelis Work to Save Pets Abandoned Because of Hezbollah Attacks," Delphine Matthieussent, Associated Press.

Humane Society International has an article (last updated July 28) and form where you can donate funds to help pets that have been "left injured and homeless in war-torn Lebanon." You can see it on their "Support Our International Disaster Fund" page.

Which, interestingly, was linked to from the Environmental News Network's article.

Well, everyone has pets.

I have a bit of a soft spot for naked birds. It started with Little Naked Finster Buddy, one of the four original Finsters. It continued with Bambi, who got the nickname "Skanky" when she stopped taking baths (and started losing feathers for lack of proper preening). Now I have Oolong (Of The Ears), and the very handsome Szechwan (Pepper).

Remember when I first got this bunch of birds, and I thought there was a chance that some of them might grow some feathers back in a new environment? Well, I was wrong. None of them seem to have grown any feathers back — and in fact, Szechwan (Pepper) has lost more feathers on his tiny, tiny little head. His head is now practically naked. You could even call him bald. Sweet, bald Szechwan (Pepper). The small picture, which you can see much bigger by clicking here (pops), shows off his very naked head.

Note that these two photos were taken right before I cleaned those perches, so keep your eyes on the bird, please.

The odd thing is the pattern of the feather plucking. He's taken off the feathers around his neck by himself, but someone else plucked the feathers from his head. One of the other Finsters is either loving him to death (so to speak), or trying to make him less attractive to the babes. So far his baldness hasn't made Cassia leave his nest box in disgust, though. Maybe she likes bald guys. Still, hopefully the trigger for all that plucking isn't jealousy, because the poor thing really can't get much balder. I shudder to think what could go next!