Ellie and the Science Museum!

Ellie and I were invited to speak to a parrot club about how she's learning to read.  It was held at the science museum in a big city an hour from our home. She's a pretty good sport about going out - she enjoys meeting new people, so I stuck her in a travel carrier and we set off. The museum itself was pretty frightening to her, unfortunately. I didn't anticipate all the noise and movement - and the room was on the second floor, past so much activity (poor thing)!

Then, in the room, lots of people had brought their birds, so... even more stuff.

The lecture went alright. We spoke a few months ago to another bird club a bit closer. There weren't any other birds there and it was at our vet's office, so she was familiar with the location. She saw a lot of people she already knew there, so she had a good time and did soooo well with her cute reading!

At the science museum, between the chilly room, the trauma from coming in, and all the birds (and noise) in the room, she was solidly overwhelmed. She mostly wanted to sit and warm her little feet up, so didn't read a lot. That was fine - I brought lots of backup videos, and then started using my mom as an example for the learning process. That woke Ellie up! She was NOT going to be outdone! So she popped up and--quite halfheartedly--demonstrated how to learn colors. She's a hilarious, apathetic little anti-hero. She did a few other little reading examples before skulking off to warm her feet and recover from trauma once more.

Getting out, I covered her traveling cage, but someone was pressure-washing the sidewalk outside... scariest noise ever for her... poor thing. She's still (two days later) a little upset by the whole experience. On the way home I stopped at a Greek restaurant and we played together and ate some Greek food to cheer her up.

Oh well. So many lessons learned! It was our second community lecture (the first went really, really well), and it was a good and low-pressure place, so that worked out. :)