Gus
We bought Gus as a fledgling and at that your age he was incredibly affectionate. He would sit on my shoulder, gently nibbling at an ear lobe, grooming what was left of my hair and even fiddling around with my lips. Similarly he was very easy to handle as long as you didn't fiddle with his wings too much (He's was always sensitive about those after being rather savagely wing-clipped by a Vet when we first bought him). He started beeping and whistling at a fairly early age and soon had quite an impressive repertoire of sounds. He soon graduated into speech as well and would delight us with an occasional concert at Rochdale Road if we were sat next door. He has a maestro's whistle, complete with tremelos, and learns tunes from Fur Elise to Coronation Street with ease.
At this time we still had Daisy, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, and the two of them had their cages in the same room so they could keep each other company when we weren't in there with them. We used to take the two of them literally everywhere: For walks in the local park, to Naomi's parents in Scotland, and down to my parents' house in London, onto the narrowboat Rambling Rose and to dog shows (Naomi was into competitive dog obedience at the time). We even taught Gus some phrases specifically for dog shows, such as "Hey! You with the dog, COME HERE!" and "Woof Woof! I can bark, can you fly?" which he still repeats to this day (along with such classics as "Phooooawww, MINGER", "ZOOOOOEEEE" (Our second poodle, now dead, who used to get terribly confused and rush into the room thinking one of us was calling her), and Want a brew?.
Gus went through a period where he was quite aggressive and would happily nip at anything that came in range, but since we've moved to Urmston he's mellowed out again. He has his cage out in the hallway where he can keep an eye on all the comings and goings in the house. From there he regails us with a constant stream of chatter and songs. Steve, (our lodger) has struck up a really good relationship with him and frequently gets him out for a stroke. He always comes up to the corner of his cage last thing at night to get a scritch on the top of his head from me. Parrots can live up to 60-70 years so we're looking forward to Gus being our companion for a long time yet.
