Birdie Update #1

Birdie spends most of her time in the alcove above the living room TV, or on the adjoining platforms:

        

        

But lately, she’s made 4 [!!!] trips down from her lair to do some exploring!

Our friend Nat came to visit us 2 Saturdays ago and Birdie made a very unexpected trip down from her alcove.  First she explored the base of the cat tree and the beautiful flowers Jim gave me:

       

Then she jumped to the floor and investigated the catnip pouch [next to the temporary mouse cage] before wandering into the dining room:

       

Jim paused the movie and he and I had a very excited, whispered interchange: “OMG!  Are you seeing this?  Look at that!  She’s going into the dining room!  OMG!OMG!OMG!!!” and Nat stared at us like we were nuts.  Heh.

Skip forward a week and Birdie was in the cat tree challenging Darwin to a territorial dispute.  It was so funny!  She had been sleeping in the cat tree house, but left to go get a snack.  Meanwhile Darwin jumped up and decided it was his turn for a snooze.  She was so appalled to find him there!  She was like “Um, excuse me, Darwin, but… you’re in my spot.  Yes, you’re definitely in my spot.  You should leave now.  Or I’ll hiss.  Or something… C’mon!  Move!”:

       

Darwin was like “buzz off, this is MY nap spot and I’m not leaving!”  So after about 2 minutes, Birdie jumped up the rest of the way to her alcove 🙂  That’s the first time we’ve seen her purposely approach Darwin.  Usually it’s Darwin approaching her.  Major progress!

The next morning, Birdie was on the floor exploring again.  She checked out the bikes we store under the stairs:

        

Then had a complete love-in with Jim’s stinky gym bag:

        

        

Thursday evening, after I’d cleaned the rats’ cage, Birdie decided to leap from her platforms to the top of the cage, much to the rats’ horror:

      

I pulled my step stool over and gently carried her back to her platforms.  We don’t want to encourage her to make that leap in case either she or a rat gets injured!

20 minutes later, while I was laying on the couch watching TV with hubby, we noticed Birdie looking down at me from the alcove.  I called her and over the course of about 3 minutes she made her way down!

                

       

She even put her paw on my knee 🙂

Before she spotted Darwin closing in and raced back up to the alcove.

Yesterday morning was the most impressive floor adventure, yet!  I rolled out of bed and noticed both Bonkers and Darwin were in the bedroom with us [their way of saying “you guys are sleeping way too long and we’re hungry!”].  I walked into the hallway and was pleasantly surprised to see Birdie on the upstairs hall cat platform:

Bonkers and Darwin were hot on my tail, anxious to get their breakfast.  Birdie casually jumped to the floor and landed RIGHT NEXT to Bonkers.  I think all of us were stunned!  I wasn’t able to whip my camera around in time to catch the encounter at the top of the stairs.  But within half a second, Birdie’s instincts kicked in and she ran up the stairs towards the master bedroom while Bonkers stared after her [which is big progress, because last December – prior to when she beat the @#&% out of him – he’d have been hot on her tail]:

After Birdie disappeared into the bedroom, Bonkers wasn’t sure what to do.  Should he follow her?  Should he go downstairs?  It was funny:

       

Meanwhile I headed back into the bedroom to see what Birdie was doing, but she zoomed by me back into the hallway.  She momentarily froze when she saw Bonkers, but then zoomed by him back up onto her platforms:

        

Bonkers took a running swipe at her [!] as she flew by him, but it was a lost cause.  I headed downstairs with Bonkers and Darwin at my side, and 30 seconds later Birdie joined us, after doing a quick scan for “the enemy”:

I don’t think she really sees him as a threat, which is good!  And he still keeps his distance from her most of the time.  I think whenever she runs, his little pea brain reacts and he swats at her.  But it’s very apparent to us that Birdie is getting more and more confident!  We adopted her last August and she’s come SO FAR in less than a year!