Thursday, April 3, 2014

Maze Puzzle for the Birds (Update 1 below)
















I have no idea if anyone has ever tried this with a bird before, of any sort, but I decided to make a maze for Fig to see if she can learn to get a soybean or other rolly type of food through the maze. This first maze is very simple, but still requires quite a lot of deliberate action to complete. First, the food goes into the center via the hole. The maze is up on a ball glued in the center, on the bottom. By tipping the maze this way and that, the food can be made to roll to the square opening where Fig can take it out. Well, we'll see if she is able to pick this up or not. I suspect she'll get frustrated and want to peck the plexi-glass, so this will be a supervised activity when she is in a calm state of mind.

(Update 1) April 12: I tried this with several foods, but white bread rolled, or gently smooshed into a tight ball works very well. Fig has tried this once. She was full, and sleepy at the time, but that was intentional because I wanted to introduce this to her while she was calm. She sat on a familiar perch, and I put the ironing board in front, and just below her so she could easily see into the maze. Here's how it went: 1. I did the maze for her. I rolled the bread out. She ate it. Then she pecked the ironing board to tell me to hurry up and give her another ball of bread. 2. I did the maze again, using my finger in sort of a pecking gesture to move the ball around. After a lot of hesitation, deep looking into the opening, and much concern, Fig finally took the ball out of the box on her own, but she was incredibly suspicious about the whole thing. Again she pecked at the ironing board, 'Nother bread ball waiter!" 3. We took turns doing the maze. Fig had a couple of good pecks at the glass, and the wood edging; very hard to tell yet if she was attempting to intentionally roll the ball one way or the other. She refused to take the bread ball out on her own. I waited 15 minutes and even left the room a few times. She was just not going to put her beak in the gap again. Maybe because the ball was smaller, she did not feel it was worth the risk. Eventually, I rolled it out, and she snatched it up, pulled it apart, and gobbled it up. So that was it.  She was to full and too sleepy to take any interest in another go. Tomorrow she's on her own. Just need to balance the box a bit better with some coins which I will glue on the bottom.

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