Kirby

I decided I needed something to do, and since my budgies are my one obsession a blog about them would be much fun!
So for starters a bit about me, and how I came to have my budgies.
I'm 18 years old and graduated year 12 last year (2010). I didn't really know for sure what it was I wanted to do with myself, but I loved animals, and found a course to study companion animals meaning dogs, cats, horses, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice and reptiles.
The course required me to be there studying on tuesdays and wednesdays for theory and prac lessons, we also had to complete 160 hours work placement where ever we wanted as long as we did 60 hours at RSPCA (the royal society prevention of cruelty to animals).I found the whole course interesting and learned a lot about animals I'd never owned before, when we came to the bird topic I became really interested in them. I'd never owned a bird before, and hadn't considered how much effort people put into them.

At the time the only pets I had were two cats, Mink and Mitsie and my Lop eared rabbit Snowy. I had asked my Mum a few months back if I could get a pet budgie but she said no that I didn't have the time or the space. I agreed and was happy to start studying and be able to handle more animals.
I started my first placement at a local pet store in my town half way through march.
I was nervous to handle the birds as I never had before and was a little afraid of being bitten, throughout my placement I came to admire how cute and colourful budgies were. I learned a fair bit about them, and got to handle a few briefly. 
One day I was wiping the front of the bird cages, when I got to the budgies I noticed a little baby bird sitting at the front, she would come up the the wire at the front of the cage and grip on with her little feet and do a flip! I thought she was so adorable, I continued to watch her, there were about 15 budgies in the cage... FAR too small. But that's how many pet stores are. She didn't seem to get along well with the other budgies, she would try and join in their little chats but they didn't let her in.
I went home that night, and told my Mum about her, I didn't even have to convince my mum she just agreed I could get her.  The next day (Friday the 25th march) I went and got a cage, some toys and then finally picked up my little bird!


Basically she sat in the same spot of the cage for 3-4 hours, after that she climbed onto a ladder and sat there for another few hours! this was completely normal. Her cage is in my bedroom, so over the time of a week she got used to me coming in and out and she got to trust me. I then started putting my hand in her cage to see if she would come near me. She was named Kirby within that week, The pet store told me she was male, But once I did more research it was decided she was female. Kirby wasn't hard to hand tame, she started biting me but not hard, and she still does this, I think its just her personality and a way of playing. Once you have their trust its easy from there, let them choose to come to you. Being that Kirby was so young (only about 2 months old) when I got her and I had her by herself she bonded with me easily. within about a month she would come to me when ever I came to the cage. :)
these are some pictures of Kirby when I first got her, she ended up loving this mirror toy and would sit on it for hours, I removed it from her cage and then used it to help gain her trust in me by holding it inside the cage and she would get on it while I was holding it and then climb on me too.

 the second picture is one my friend took with her iPhone her cere looked a light blue colour here ( which was why we thought she was a he), but now days its white with a bit of brown tint.