Cockatiels are
beautiful birds, as you see here. They are similar in appearance to some other
parrots, and are native to Australia. About 5 million of these birds are kept as
pets in the United States.
This bird has more yellow coloration than the
lower picture would suggest. That picture was taken at close range, and the
relative absence of yellow is probably due to the intensity of the light. The
bird was not frightened by the flash, and is usually quite calm. It never
ignores loud or strange noises, however.
A closer look
The bird
sometimes perches on the computer for an hour or more at a time, as you can see.
This leaves some residue on the computer, which can be removed with
Poop-Off.
The diagonal red line at the upper right of this photo is the
label on a Zip disk. Presently, I have a parallel-port Zip drive on top of the
computer, partly because that's where I keep the mouse. The bird destroyed two
of these devices by chewing through the cords, close to where the cords enter
the body of the mouse. That was a while ago, however, and the latest mouse to be
installed has lasted for some time. By sitting it on top of the Zip drive, at
the shortest possible distance from the PS/2 port, it is positioned out of the
bird's view, and therefore out of harm's way.
