Luci-Too

STORY OF LUCI-TOO

It was Wednesday 26 February 2003 when we went in to Select Garden & Pets to get some seed for all our birds. We generally took a trip up the stairs to the hand reared bird room to see if there were any new "babies" To our surprise, there was a baby "Cape", as well as others! We asked to be let in to see what we were told was a female. She looked really sweet and my sister from South Africa said that she reminded her of Lucy. There was much badgering that she needed a new home and we were the ones to give it to her, so the decision was eventually made to fork out the "arm and a leg" required to secure her as our child. My sister Laurelle insisted that she should be called Lucy as she looked so much like Lucy, who I had hand reared, along with my Grandmother back in 1964.

Luci-Too gets a name

It was decided that Lucy would be called Luci-Too. Luci-Too was 17 weeks old when we adopted him. I have said her at the start as we originally purchase our "baby" as a female, but all the red / orange feathers on the poll have disappeared, without a moult. The wings and socks have since appeared, but we still had several red / orange feathers which did not disappeared at the beginning, but have done so now. We have changed the spelling from Lucy to Luci but the sound is the same, so we ended up with a "little boy" and the name won't matter much. We had been offered a sexing test by our vet to confirm, but felt that to put the bird through the indignity and stress was not worth the fuss. There was also a blood sample option, at a fair cost, but that too was declined. We were patient and wait ed the time out. Luci-Too is definately a little boy!

Luci-Too settles in with the others

Luci-Too's initial reaction to the other birds was to turn tail and run. As the months have gone by, he has become more bold and will defend or show aggression if confronted or attacked. Luci-too has settled down well, but as our four other "Capes" do not like him at all, the feeling has now become mutual. Luci-Too tolerates all the others and does not go out of his way to antagonise or annoy the others.

Luci was initially acceptable with being asked to step up by strangers, but with age has now become selective with whom he will go to. Usually children are considered okay, but there are exceptions. Luci will go to most children, and adores the head and poll scratching that comes from them. Ladies can generally be a problem, unless they are known,and even then there is agression. Often with men there is a selective issue. Luci will generally try and bite anyone who smokes. He does not take too kindly to smokers, and there are no exceptions to this dislike.

I can do a lot more with Luci than other members of the family, but am also "frowned upon" if I show too much attention elsewhere, or don't respond when he feels I should.

Luci catches fright quite easily, so we always have to be careful not to make any sudden moves in the vicinity of his cage. It is almost as if he was mishandled as a baby. When this happens, we just apologise and offer comfort until a balance has been achieved again.

Luci-Too learns to talk and copy sounds

Luci-Too learned to talk very quickly and was saying words like hello, bye-bye, pretty bird, no bite, naughty, no and several mutterings after just a couple of weeks. Luci now has the telephone and the mobile phone, down to a tee. The accuracy is such that if you are upstairs and do not hear the initial "ping" when the land line phone rings, you will nearly always fall for the trap. One day when Luci was ringing the phone, Aileen made her usual reply of "Hello, can I help you", only to get a voice behind saying, "Yes, I hope so" from our postman. Everyone had a real good laugh over that. Luci has copied nearly all the other bird's sounds and makes a very good replica of them, right down to the correct volume.

A favourite is ringing the phone, and when you respond with "Hello Luci" you end up getting a "Bye-bye. Bye-bye darling" in return.

The first real dark night of our 2003 Autumn, Luci was out for the usual fly around and mistook the reflection in the kitchen window for another room. There was a bang as he flew into the window, something he had always been good at avoiding. I ran through to rescue him and check out for any injury. Fortunately there was none, so I cradled him in my hands while carrying him through to the lounge. He poked his head out of the opening in my hands as I walked through and said "Pee-po". We all burst out laughing.

Luci loves to talk when very relaxed and preening all his feathers.

Playing Games

Luci loves all sorts of toys, ropes and swings. It does not matter if they are plastic or wooden toys, they are accepted just as well either way. A favourite is a rope swing. It is extremely exciting to chew all the wooden pieces out and leave only the ropes hanging there. A few cages have wooden perches, and these are ideal for him to jump and fly to.

Luci will fly to your hand on command, and obeys pretty well, unless in an aggressive mood. Then you are likely to get the occasional nip.

Luci loves coming out of his cage and flapping the wings madly while holding on. This seems to be an enjoyable pastime, as there is almost a smile seen when this is going on.

We will update this story as Luci develops.

Thank you for reading the story about Luci-Too. Please go on to read the stories of our other birds from the HOME PAGE location.

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