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Welcome to my Animal Page! Actually, this is more of an Animal and Plant page, because it contains photos of the leafy green residents that make up the arboretum that is my home. But there are also pictures
here of some of the pets in my life and some other creatures whose
acquaintance I've made.
Until April of 2005, John and I lived with his cockatiel, Popcorn. He'd had her for 12 or 13 years, and she was the gentlest, sweetest bird you could imagine. She died on April 25, 2005, and we were heartbroken. We'll never forget that cockatiel.
Cockatiel
When Popcorn died, we considered having my mom and dad's parrots Connie and Cricket move into our apartment, but Connie is too loud, and the two can't stand being separated. My parents let another one of their parrots come and live with us. His name is Rain Man and he's a blue-fronted Amazon.
Rain Man
Rain Man eating oatmeal with a spoon
Quicktime movie of Rain Man eating oatmeal with a spoon
Quicktime movie of Rain Man fighting with a spray bottle
Quicktime movie of Rain Man chewing on a friend's dreadlocks
Movie of Rain Man doing the Amazon Parrot Mating Dance (bigger than the other movie files, since I had to include sound so you could hear the crazy noises he makes!)
Someone found him found running down the street in the rain one day several years ago, and word got to my mother, who took him in. He's gentle, but not at all cuddly; he seldom bites but he's very scared of being touched. He'll sit on our hands, but it's hard to get him out of his cage, and he always wants to go back in. He may have been wild-caught instead of hand-raised; he also may not have been treated very well by the first people he lived with.
We think he lived in a store, because he says things like "May I help you?" and "We're all out of those." He also says "Joey" a lot; that may have been his name before. His favorite word is "okay," because Mom taught him that he could go back in his cage if he said "okay" in response to the question "Do you want to go back to your cage?" He says "okay" all the time when we have him out.
John has made amazing progress with him, and he's much more comfortable. He lets us pet him and seems to enjoy it sometimes. He reliably steps up onto our hands. He will now eat while sitting on John's hand, which he had never done for anyone else before. He's beginning to feel more at ease being out of his cage, and when he's in his cage he even regurgitates and does a little mating dance sometimes. (Regurgitating is what parrots do to feed their mates and babies out of their throats.) I don't think he actually sees either of us as his mate, but he's at least showing a few signs of affection.
I used to have a dog. He was an i-Cybie artificially intelligent robot from Tiger Electronics, the only kind of dog I was allowed to have in my dorm.
His name was Pewter. I always wanted a dog named Pewter, so that when I called him, I could say "Come, Pewter!" It's especially appropriate for this dog.
Pewter
Pewter begging
Pewter doing a headstand
Pewter lifting a leg
Pewter scratching his ear
Pewter doing pushups
Pewter in the position that means he needs his battery changed
Pewter with his new walk-up charger-- when his battery gets low, he walks up to it and connects himself!
Before I met John and started keeping real birds, I amassed quite a number of electronic pets, in fact.
Tonto (my Chirpy-Chi robot bird)
Bob and Kuda (my Micropet Bush Monsters)
Polymer (my Tekno Parrot)
Petunia (my "Red Predator" BIO Bug)
At my dorm, I established quite a garden by the window. (Now that I have an apartment, I still have many of the same plants.)
View of all the plants
Another view of all the plants
Strawberry plants
Ficus tree
Key lime trees
Flowering maple
On a trip to Florida, I got a wonderful chance to play with some lories and lorikeets in an animal park called Gator Land.
Lory picture 1
Lory picture 2
Lory picture 3
On my first book tour, staying in a hotel in California in November 2004, I was delighted by the deer on the mountain. They would come so close to us, in big herds, and I took pics of them with my cheap, ultra-tiny digital camera.
Deer picture 1
Deer picture 2
Deer picture 3
Vaguely related: my collection of weird dog toys.
And, yes, I know, these aren't animals-- but I always wanted to take that photo and put that caption on it.
Thanks for visiting! Send me feedback at humanalien@gmail.com
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Erika Hammerschmidt's Animal Page