Notes on Washing/ Mimicking

Fig often drops/ discards food that she does not like, especially citrus fruit that she finds too sour or tart. If she drops it rind down, I will sometimes pick it up, give the rind and the whole fruit a good rinse, put it back up on her shelf, and tell her in my best admonishing parent voice, while pointing at the fruit, “You, eat that!” And she usually complies, after which she gets something tastier for a reward. I can hardly afford to have her tossing away perfectly good food as a habit. The other day, I picked up some citrus she had dropped, and I didn’t rinse it, because it wasn’t soiled, and had landed in a clean spot, rind down., so I just picked it up and put it back on her shelf. She jumped down, grabbed the fruit, took it over to her water bowl, sauntering like a cowboy, proceeded to give it an emphatic shake in her water bowl, three times no less, then she took it up to her perch and ate the whole thing.

She often will wash things, or take food to water to wet it, soak it, or otherwise make it more palatable. Interestingly, she never ever takes food to her bath though, only to smaller bowls of water which I always provide in addition to her bath or baths depending on the weather. I suppose she realizes she'll lose half of the food in the depths. But this instance of cleaning seemed very clearly to me to be mimicking, with a bit of cheekiness tossed in. “You forgot to wash it!” sort of a thing. She has mimicked me before  when she brought water in her beak to wash under her perches.

These sorts of things just leave me speechless.