I've mentioned before that birds need toys. Of course, different creatures have different ideas about what can make a good toy. Peanut's favorite toys are paper and cloth, the Finsters' favorites are food and things that might make a nest (sometimes they think they're the same thing), my favorite toys usually have sharp bits (but that's a different story).

More than any other Finster, Frank likes to put things into his beak. Not new food items, so much, but perch hardware, vines on the nest boxes, food dishes, and things like that. Recently -- although not since that crazy day when all the new birds arrived -- Frank started chewing on the opening of a nest box. Click here to see a close up of the entry way, although I must admit either my camera or my Photoshop skills leave a bit to be desired. Still, if you look carefully at the left side of the hole, you should be able to see where Frank's Mighty Beak has, with fierce determination over several months, managed to fray the kraft paper, and even bend it out a bit. Just imagine the damage he could do if given the chance to bite me whenever he got bored!

The plastic vines I hot glue onto the top of the nest boxes have proven to be a favorite of many of the new Finsters, although I think a lot of their interest is in nest building, and not chewing or playing per se. The new birds are also fond of the cloth tied to the perch hardware (placed there to keep Peanut from flying into pointy things), although again, they first seemed attracted to it as potential nesting material, and tried to fly away with it. I took a few photos, these came out the best. Frank is small and blurry, Darjeeling is big and chewing on a string.