Thursday, April 2, 2009

What if Oedipus Rex Had a Happy Ending?

For the first several weeks of Magoo's arrival, he was getting quite aggressive with his dad Sutcliffe, and rather romantic with his mother.  By romantic, I mean doing the head bobbing, stretching, feeding, and insisting on being next to Mary Ann all the time (and squeezing Sutcliffe out).  Typically, Sutcliffe would just move to the other side of Mary Ann, find another perch, or generally ignore Magoo.  If Sutcliffe was eating, or grooming, Magoo would hop over and try to disrupt him.  Was Sutcliffe being replaced by his own son?  Was Magoo to bring the shame of Oedipus upon our lovely budgie family?

Sutcliffe finally had enough.  He was not overly aggressive, but he used well timed (and perhaps well placed?) pecks to limit Magoo's romantic overtures and also, twice, knocked Magoo right off the perch.  Magoo had to humbly climb back up to the perches.  There are low perches, but the budgies normally reside in the top 1/3 of the cage, so it was a rather long way up.  It seems that Magoo had time to think his actions through during his climb, because after those two firm warnings from Sutcliffe, Magoo has simply become a regular member of the family.  Everyonein the flock participates in the ordinary occasional challenge to a perch spot, or feeds one or another member of the flock, but the overt courting of the mother and aggression towards the father has stopped.

1 comment:

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The Happy Couple

The Happy Couple
Sutcliffe and Maryann in early 2007