Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Stella, 1 part sugar, 2 parts vinegar

One of Stella's favorite things is to go outside (but in her cage!) and show off to her imagined audience of the entire outdoor world that she has a cork, or a plum slice, or a strawberry or a piece of cheese... just that she has something and everyone else does not. It's also an important thing to announce to everyone in the imagined audience that my neighbor is pacing up and down his driveway again while he spends an hour or two making his phone calls. I am not sure why he has to spend so much time on that driveway getting mad at people but he is undeterred by Stella's very loud admonishments (I'm secretly proud of her participation in his phone calls). Anyway, yesterday was a nice day for Stella and me. I don't know what my neighbor's thoughts were about it though. >:-)

When I was out in the garden, I felt something was watching me. I think I'm really good at figuring out when that happens but for all I know there are 100s of pairs of eyes staring at me and I can only find one. Here is the little head I saw watching me transplant the pineapple lily seedlings.

I got a sinking feeling when I saw his entire body because up to now, I have not seen any grasshoppers and I want to keep it that way. I do not want to repeat last year's summer experience of getting stared at by stoned out grasshoppers.

Apparently this little guy is a meadow katydid. Whew. I'm okay with katydids, just not grasshoppers, even though the two of them are probably well related. For some reason this little katydid had only one antenna (looks like the other one broke off at some point) and this one long antenna kept rapidly circling around. You can almost see the motion marks.

Well, you could probably see those motion marks a little clearer if somebody didn't have such a fit when she was getting her picture taken. Take a look at this...



Oh she's a bad one. And I think somebody did something with the focusing ability of my camera. Errrrrgh.

But that face. I forgive her every time. She can't help that her little face is attached to a body that is too small to contain all that chutzpah.

5 comments:

Country Girl said...

My nickname is Katydid, so I'm partial to the little green bugs! And love that Stella with all her chutzpah!

Dawn said...

How nice to "see" Stella the little stinker birdie. She waited until just the right moment as you got closer to attack your camera Maria. You can just see that little mind working, LOL ! I got the phone call yesterday to go visit my baby meyers I have been patiently awaiting. There is a male and a female. Going to be a tough choice to pick. I so often read you should let the bird 'pick' you. We'll see how that goes. I'm kind of leaning towards the female and love the name Tallulah. Thanks for writing about Stella. I'll have to get an outside cage to my bird can 'talk' to my neighbor.

Maureen said...

OMG! Stella made me laugh out loud. Pacino, my Senegal, does exactly the same thing at the least expected moments.

Maria said...

Kate-I know you're a Katydid! :-) And I forgot, a friend from long ago used to call me Cricket.

Dawn-It took me a couple days to figure out what to write about Stella but once again, she soon came through with some new bad behavior. Stella is just horrible but like I mentioned before, her wings have never been clipped. I also suspect she's a "he." Not sure but I do know that girly birds are supposed to be nicer than boys so if you have a choice...I'd pick a Meyer's girl over a boy and besides, Tallulah is a GREAT name.

Maureen-Poor, poor Dawn. She's about to get a Poicephalus parrot. Ha ha ha. Is Pacino as bad as Stella? She really is a horrible bird but inexplainably I do love her a lot.

Maureen said...

I'd have to say Pacino is a good bird, but certainly not as cheerful as the cocketiel I once had, now that was a happy dancing singing playful little guy. I think Pacino may be female, and I've read they tend to be crankier than the males. Or less, "Hey look at me, aren't I just adorable" - but Pacino likes to cuddle and talks a lot, tells him-her-self to stop screaming, and my favorite thing is when he-she says "See ya later" when he-she wants people to leave. As in get the hell out. Funny.