Look at these innocent, harmless birdies.  You can tell that they would never, ever misbehave.  They are so tiny, so sweet and completely incapable of anything but the most gentle behavior.

That is, unless you want to sleep in.  Then they might scream a bit, as they dive bomb and smack you with your wings, to wake you from your slumber.  Maybe, the little one on the right, might bite you, if he feels like it; which would be all of the time.  And perhaps they might just fling corn kernels around the room all willy-nilly.

Okay, I understand that they are living beings and as such, they do exhibit some less than optimal behavior patterns from time to time.  This is especially true when what they want is not exactly in line with what we want them to do.

Recently we had such a break between expected behavior and actual bird actions.  This issue was the result of their desire to perch in places, we did not necessarily wish them to perch.  The place, the bathroom, specifically the compact florescent bulbs.  Look at the below adorable photo.  They are so darned cute there.  NO! 

Why no?  Because, not only could they potentially land on the lit bulbs and burn their little birdie feet; but primarily because they would perch there for hours and poop around the sink. It was pretty nasty and unsanitary.  Who the hell wants to brush their teeth with a toothbrush sitting near a pile of bird crap?  Ew, just ew. And we prefer to control the places where they poop.  Jalapeno is good about using the cage, but Peep – not so much.  Peep is a vindictive pooper. 

See how sweet they look perched on that TV.  You just want to hug them.  Peep, again the one on the right, just wants to crap on the TV.  It's like he's deliberately trying to make a statement.  I should contact the Nielsen ratings people and see if they can rig him up to some kind of device that can rate based on parakeet droppings.  Peep definitely has a statement to make.  Oh, and notice the white spot to the right of Peep.  Yup, that is Peep poop.  I again experienced the joy of cleaning his crap off the TV.

Yup, he's one bad bird.  Not only is he extremely pooperific, but he bites when you poke him in the belly.  This behavior is not very conducive to good birdie/people relationships.  I have discussed this with him at great length.  He is convinced that he is right and I should just shut the hell up and bring him his damned millet.  There is no respect whatsoever here.

So, I had to put a stop to this.  Discipline had to be maintained.  I could not allow a little 25 gram bird the ability to bully me around.  And Peep is a bully, a biting pooping bully.  He is adorable, but he needed to be put back in line from time to time.  So after some thought, I decided to use my problem solving abilities to void the point of bulb perching.  I figured that I could put round bulbs up that they couldn’t land on.  Then the problem would be resolved once and for all. 

I was going to get those compact florescent bulbs with the outer plastic that was incandescent bulb like.  However, they were nearly ten bucks a pop.  There was no way I was going to get fours of those bastards for that price.  Screw that.  I was in the flea market and saw some of those groovy, energy efficient, round LED light bulbs.  I figured, kill two birds with one bulb.  I'd get some energy savings and stop the cycle of crapping all at once.  And, they were only five bucks a pop.  I had a winner.

It was an epic fail.

The bulbs were not completely round.  They had an edge on the front, and there were convenient slots that were just ideal for tiny parakeet claws. Not only did they perch on the new bulbs, but at one point I found then up there, sound asleep.  Sound asleep, eyes closed, heads tucked under their wings.  It had  became their new favorite place to perch.  It was like this was their new sleeping habitat, and they had no intent to go anywhere else, ever again.

I could not believe that I was thwarted; thwarted by little tiny birds at that.  So I vowed that I would prevail.  No adorable budgie was going to make a mockery of my superior intellect. Power consumption or price had to give way.  So, I had to go old skool.

Victory came this morning in the visage of a beautiful green and yellow bird, flapping his wings and yelling in frustration, as he could not land on an incandescent light bulb.

Sometimes it is the little things.

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