Conner is scared of so many things. Take this orange, for instance. It looks pretty innocuous, right?
The other day Conner saw Jon toss an orange in the air. Conner is now terrified of oranges. You see, inanimate objects are not supposed to move of their own accord. Conner is terrified of the elliptical machine for the same reason.
We discovered that Conner’s new fear of oranges is not limited to the fruit. He is also terrified of the color orange. He hates this shirt:
At first I didn’t know what was wrong. He’s never been afraid of my clothing. But Conner had this expression:
and I knew that something was seriously wrong. (sorry for the quality of the photo, but I don’t have many examples of Conner looking scared since I stop taking pictures as soon as he makes the above expression)
So I won’t be wearing any orange shirts for awhile. And I certainly won’t be showing him this:
(this is Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Who knows what Conner actually sees. Birds see in four primary colors, and they’re at mostly different places on the frequency spectrum than humans. The big difference is that birds can see in the ultraviolet.
There was a very good Scientific American article about this, but I can’t find it. So I’ll have to resort to Wikipedia. Here’s the bird visual spectrum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BirdVisualPigmentSensitivity.svg
Details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromat
Here’s the spectrum for humans. The rods (S, M, L lines) do daylight vision, and the R line is the cone absorption spectrum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cone-response.svg
More details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichromat
Poor Connor! But it’s a fascinating post, and just the other day I was reading another blog about bird vision and I wondered whether their eyes had the rod and cone structure that ours do. The commenter above answered that question, thanks! The funny part? I just happen to be wearing a bright orange t-shirt right now. Sorry, Connor!
Oh poor Connor — the world is just full of orange things!
Charli goes on red alert when she sees red (sorry, couldn’t resist). She is, however, terrified of long sticks like mops; I’ve had her all her life and no, she was never abused by a long stick. My two cockatiels don’t seem to be phased by anything of any color.
It’s a dangerous life for Conner in his mind. He’s also scared of mops and brooms, but that fear is slowly decreasing. He’s also much less scared of the vacuum since he hasn’t seen it in action in awhile (we keep them in a separate room during vacuuming so Conner doesn’t see the vacuum).
Thomas can’t wear orange (or bright blue, or certain greens) around Rocky or he gets attacked. What fun these guys bring to our lives!
Mary, I was thinking of you when I wrote this post. I know you’ve written before about how color triggers your birds. Macaws have such strong feelings about color! I was surprised to see the same reaction in a cockatiel.
…wow! I had no idea a cockatiel would form such a strong reaction so quickly! Poor little guy. I guess Halloween isn’t going to be too fun for him anymore with those really big “oranges” sitting around! Carving a pumpkin will put him over the edge!
hee, hee. Kelly, Conner is the most panicky cockatiel I know. He gets upset when I make the bed because he’s disturbed by all those covers flying around. I agree, I think pumpkins would send him over the edge. It’s a good thing that we weren’t very festive for Halloween this year.