Beautiful Jenny Lynn

This is a painting of an orange-winged amazing named Jenny Lynn. I call the painting, "Beautiful Jenny Lynn." I made this for a friend as a thank you for the awesome toys he made for my fids (feathered kids). It is on an 8x10 canvas in acrylic paint. I had fun painting this; Jenny's happy eyes and sweet smile make her super fun to paint! The only thing I am upset about is my where I put my initials - M.C. I hate where I put it and how it looks.): I should have put it under the branch.

Reference picture.

Chicken Legs

These are my Peatree's legs. To a bird person (or nut by your definition if you aren't one) or parrot enthusiast, they might appear like a Nanday conure's instead of a green-cheek's because of the red "pants." However, my Peatree is the pineapple mutation of green-cheeked conures, which do have the red pant-legs.

If you look carefully at her toes, you will notice that there are two in front and two in back (Zygodactyl in the bird world), like a woodpeckers. This enables them to climb trees in the wild and toys in the cage.

Zygodactyl feet is a trait in all parrots and woodpeckers, the sole exception being the Three-toed Woodpecker. Essentially, the only difference between them is that all parrots have a hooked beak meant for hulling seeds, whilst woodpeckers have a straight beak meant for (obviously) drilling holes and cracking seeds. So, if you see any bird that has a hooked beak and "Z" feet, it's a parrot.

You might raise a question to this.

"Any bird?" you might ask. Yes, any bird. "What about...(pauses to rack brain for exceptions)...budgies?! Gotcha! Budgies aren't parrots! They're....budgies...?"

WRONG. Budgies, short for budgerigars, are true parrots. They hull seeds with their hooked beak and climb around the cage and on toys with their "Z" feet.

"Ummm...wait! Hawks have a hooked beak, and you can't tell me that they're parrots!" You're right, I can't tell you that, and I'm not even going to try. They're not. If you look closely at a raptor's feet, you can see they have three toes in front and one in back for perching. And, as you may note, their beaks are not for hulling seeds.

"Fine, you have me beat. I get it now." Good! Some people are a lot more difficult to convince. Once my editor met a person who thought cockatoos weren't parrots simply because they were white. Thankfully, she was able to explain without making the person feel dumb!

Of course, Peatree doesn't really care if I or anyone knows that she's a true parrot. Neither do my budgies. All they care about is that I take care of them correctly and give them lots of toys and attention!

Happy parroting, everyone!

Tribute to Jacob

I finally made a memorial video for my sweet Angel Jacob. It was hard to make - I kept crying when I saw his pictures. It was very bittersweet. While I was looking at his pictures and crying, I remembered all the sweet memories of him, like the one time he escaped from my room. It was more than half an hour before I found him in the wash room. And how he made Bellatrix and Hermione let Weasley eat. When they kicked her out of the food dish, he would hop up in between them, and swish to one side to knock one off, then swish to the other side to knock the other off. He would then hop down and let Weasley eat. Oh how I miss him!

Here's the video.

Happy New Year & Late Christmas

I hope every body had a very Merry Christmas! We sure did! Peatree got spoiled, silly bird got 10 things. :P

I also hope your 2013 is amazing!