Just Got My Lip Pierced...By My Parrot!!!

I apologize to those of you who must've wondered what the heck that was all about! I don't know why but when I published the photo it didn't give me any room to print remarks. I was having difficulty with my server (again!) so I shut down and read for awhile. Imagine my surprise when I fired up this evening and here's the photo! I thought it had been deleted...BTW, that's not my bird. This appears to be a blue and gold macaw. I picked it up from a free site.
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So what happened was this: I have a routine with my birds in the evening. Last call for food is 9:00 p.m., and then they get covered for the evening. My nanday concure is pretty tempermental. I've had him since '93 when I adopted him from a family that kept him outside all of the time - now he's in the house - and has free reign of his cage until night when I close him and the cockatiel, Spike, in their cages. Spanky steps up onto my hand and does the whole "I love you, night, night," thing and gives me kisses right on my beak (that would be lips) and then he goes into his cage for the night. Well, last night, he decided to lunge for my face and bite my upper lip and the space between my lip and nose.

The one thing I've learned about birds is that they are not dogs. If a pet dog behaved that way we'd have to make arrangements to have it put down after a couple of repeat performances. But birds don't behave along the same manner. Spanky has bonded with me and hates my spouse. I've already been told that if I go first, the bird goes, too! In bird world, he speaks an entirely different lingo and I'm still learning. Sometimes if he senses danger, like a hawk in the yard, he tries to persuade me to get in the cage because he thinks I'm his mate. And that consists of little nips. Sorry, but I'm not into laying eggs...

Anyway, I have a bloody hole in my lip and I still love my bird. I guess I have latent Marquise de Sade tendencies. I know I've made comments about wishing that I'd pursued a career in psychology, well, I would also like to be an animal behaviorist. They fascinate me!