No junk food, eh? (sigh) My birds have gotten so insistent on getting a share of whatever I eat that I feel like I'm in a "lesser of two evils" situation. Little BooBoo the budgie just looks so pitiful and sad if I don't share the Cheetos or whatever. Krikkit the conure's attitude is more of a "You might as well give me some of that -- you know I am NEVER going to give up until I get some, so cut your losses and let's just get it over with, eh?"
The various other birds run a basic variant on the "Hey, are you giving them something? I only ask because I noticed you're not giving ME anything. Am I not good enough or something? Wow -- I am really depressed now. You have hurt me very deeply!"
That angle is hopeless I suppose, so... I assume that unsalted popcorn is OK, right? I mean, my birds absolutely LIVE for canned cooked kernel corn (say that 6 times fast) and the larger ones are pretty much always up for a chunklet of good, hard "jimmycrack" corn.
And I don't care.
Well, what I mean to say is, I don't mind that I get completely covered with jimmycrack corn "shrapnel" when Krikkit is crunching furiously away at it -- it's easy enough to sweep it off of my clothing with no harm done -- assuming she doesn't think to come back for a second "cleanup" pass, which I do greatly appreciate when she does. In any case, it's certainly a far cry less unpleasant than what the little 'keets do after I've generously provided them with a quarter cup of canned cooked corn kernels. Those little peckers are amazingly adept at emptying the "skin" of the corn kernel completely, guzzling every molecule of tasty mush out and leaving a little hollow sort of corn bag, for lack of a better word. So you'd imagine they should be equally adept at disposing of these slimy little yellow membranes... right? Wrongo!
I can't help but wonder how it is that such a large percentage of the time, as soon as a given kernel has been scooped out comletely and rendered useless, within the next few seconds there will be a tiny, quiet sort of "fthwapp" sound, and I'll be smacked on the cheek or directly in the face with a cold wet slimy emptied-out cornbag!?! It is an indescribably icky feeling -- well, actually I guess "icky" described it as well as anything, now that I think of it. Well, disgustingly icky or not, it's definitely not "according to Hoyle" by any stretch of the imagination. (it stings a bit sometimes as well!)
Personally, it is a deeply-held belief of mind that if the birds were not purposely "fthwapping" me in the cheek and/or face area with their hollowed-out husk hoohahs, they never would've developed the skill of being able to slap such exquisitely perfect and precise "What? Are you looking at me? Did something happen? Cuz I have NO idea why you're looking at me. If you are. Looking at me, that is. I mean, I don't want it to seem like I'm overthinking this or anything." looks across their smirking little beaks!
I seem to have gone off on a bit of a tangent.
Now, as I was saying before, popcorn with no salt must be perfectly healthy for avian consumption. Of course, I can't stand eating popcorn that's unsalted, which immediately renders a number of points moot. However (take note of this!) I've found that noone has yet perfected the whole popcorn seasoning equation. No matter what, you always get some kernels that have no salt on them, or at the very least you can find a piece of a kernel that didn't get seasoned and break that off for the bird. It's a pain in the tailfeather for such an unrewarding result, but it beats the alternatives. ("Fthwapp", remember?)
Well, anyhow, I better down this Triple Vodka & Red Bull and get back to my "Dumbo's Jumbo Rainbo" cotton candy before someone tries to stick their nosy beak in the bag. Again. (Trust me, if you can get through life with out ever having to un-stick an Upper Lobelian Rock Ptarmigan from a Swiffer-Tufted Florida Scrub-jay when they're both completely tangled up in a morass of multicolored spun sugar, consider yourself lucky).
-- mf