I often wonder what they’re thinking.

Astro, the little sun conyer who is the newest addition to our family, has already made quite an impression. And so, it seems, have we affected him.

He’s not too used to being handled just yet, so reaching into his cage is aided by a leather glove. Hey, nothing wrong with a little self-preservation after that hole in my thumbnail! But the people who had him before my brother must have done something evil like squeeze onto him as if their hands were corsets.

When Astro first saw my glove, even before I put it on, he started flopping around wildly in his cage, screaming bloody murder. Anyone who has ever had a parrot knows just how loud and shrill they can be. The rest of you will just have to imagine it. No, imagine it’s louder. And even more shrill. There you go!

Since I didn’t want him to hurt himself or create nerve deafness in us all, I would only stick my hand inside the cage slowly, speak to him softly, and then remove the big scary thing. After a couple of days, the scream-on-sight reflex relaxed a bit.

Now, he’s getting pretty good at “step up,” the command to come sit on my (still heavily gloved) finger. And he’s already trained both BJ and me to repeat “HELL-o” and “Pretty Bird” until even the dogs get bored. He now gets frustrated when his attempt at “Hello” sounds more like “ruh-wah,” and he screams at that. But basically, he’s come a long way in just a few days.