General Parrot Discussion

[Emiere]

• Quakers! I got a quaker for Christmas, hes a great little bird. My parents adopted him from a rescue center where he'd been taken from an abusive home. It was extremely hard coping with him at first because he was so aggressive to humans in accordance with his previous owners, but a few months later hes transitioned into an amazing pet. Hes still very shifty around the rest of my family and aggressive to any strangers, but hes developed a bond with me (after much strenuous training, I must add). He'll still come at me if I do anything to spook him, which is very understandable, but for the most part hes lost his aggression. He loves to be rubbed and petted and ride around on my shoulders, and he even tries to take food out of my mouth when I'm eating, baha. Hes also getting to the point where he likes to take showers with me, and hes becoming very vocal/starting to mimick sounds and words he frequently hears (my dad already taught him to wolf whistle, hehe), which is great because all he did for his first few months with us was hiss. Overall, I'm really glad with my progress with my bird. The fact that he was a rescue makes things all the more better. Even if training him is more of a challenge, I'm rewarded with the fact that I'm helping an animal that was once under much worse circumstances.

[Sambhur]

Anyone else want to talk about parrots/parakeets? With me?

The wild rainbow lorikeets around here have started turning up on my balcony every day, so I went and bought the correct food for them and now they hop on my arm while I spoonfeed them a little bit. They're really adorable and make the cutest little noises and then their feet go pitter-patter on my balcony and it's ADORABLE, OKAY. I only give 'em a bit though, because they need to spend the rest of the day finding food for themselves. Except now my uneducated-in-this-matter neighbour has begun feeding them sugar and honey which is absolutely terrible for their health which honestly upsets me a lot because I love these birds and now I'm worried about them. So I've begun feeding them a bit more than usual when I see they've been eating sugar, because they need the nutrients my food gives them that the sugar is obviously lacking in. :/ In case you can't guess, sugar and honey does nothing for these birds nutrient-wise, so if they eat a lot of it instead of finding their own food, it considerably weakens their immune system, which will eventually lead to their death. :^(

[duskypack]

I have wild parrots who screech by my house (there are also wild peacocks who wander my city). It's an urban legend that the parrots are from a pet store that got burned down. They certainly are annoying, but I'm fond of them.


Just keep feeding the parrots, Jewelz, I hope they live! (I am shunning all name changes o3o)
I'm just thankful there are no wild ban parrots in my city. Then my life would be in danger...

[PeltOfAsh]

Back at home when I'm walking my dogs I'll often find myself under the Coronado-San Diego Bay Bridge. There I usually hear and see all sorts of escaped parrots and other colorful and noisy birds.

[RayaF]

Wow. I used to have a parrot. His name was Sky. Its a shame I had to give him up, but since I had school, he didn't get enough attention. I gave him up because I loved him and knew he could have a better life with someone else.

[Neamara]

In my household, we only have two birds- a co­ckatiel named Lily, and our current budgie, Ash. So far Lily has been very uncooperative, and Ash is prone to attacking hands. We've had her for approximately two years and only recently have we made a bit of progress towards hand taming her, and him for just over a year now. The co­ckatiels we've had before her, Feathers and Sunny, managed to escape. The two budgies we've had before Ash, Buddy and Sky, were pretty good; we never had many issues with handling any of our previous birds.

Sunny would just perch on a big mirror we used to have hung on our living room wall all day. Unfortunately, I think my folks forgot he was out when they had a door wide open. I'd love to have a Macaw or an African Grey.

[Granger]

We have a Sun Conure, Li'i, and a blue Quaker, Saphira. (: Li'i likes me and Dad only and is actually really cool and fun, he's happy to hang out on your shoulder all day and talk over you and interrupt if you try to have a conversation with someone else. He will also viciously bite anyone who isn't me or Dad.. XD Saphira is nice too, once you have her on your wrist, but she tends to be a little more temperamental and bitey.. While Li'i loves to have his head scratched Saphira usually just wants to hang out on you but not be petted.

Li'i can kiss, and also pretend to crunch food if you eat anywhere near him. And will grumble over you. Saphira can say her name, as well as little phrases like step up. She once very mockingly said "step uuuup step uuuup" at Dad and then bit him really hard. Got her point across. Step up, he said! It would be fun, he said! I'll show him!

[american hunter1]

What bird I have
BIRD NAME: peaches
Kind of bird: Cockatiel!
Mutations: none, he's a normal
Personality: kind of mean, greedy, funny, and a flock leader
Gender:male

Another bird I have
BIRD NAME: pearl
Kind of bird: Cockatiel!
Mutations: white face
Personality: sweet, singer, kinda scared, and funny. He is friends with peaches. He is a beta. He's male.

• Edit

Why is it saying rooster?! I don't have a rooster!

[Rikkuzilla]

I very recently lost my 'tiel of 16 years. It's been a very sad road for me -- as I know they can live longer. We aren't sure what happened to her...she seemed in very good health (and I'm the type that take my birds to the vet for check ups), but we wonder if she might have suffered from a night fright and fatally injured herself. We have a male budgie, Kelso, who's a rescue parakeet, and he's quite the talker! He's hilarious! Growing up we had an African Grey (Timneh) -- he was more of my dad's bird, wasn't very nice to the rest of us (although typical of the species), but had an amazing vocabulary. I still think I prefer budgies/parakeets overall, but my favorite is the English Budgie. We used to have one named Winston that had a great vocabulary (which he partially learned from our African Grey). That's one thing I do miss about living in Florida -- how much easier it was to find English Budgies. It's very difficult, where I live now, to find good, reputable breeders, and they are pretty expensive.

[-FireBreaker-]

I had a parrot when i were one years old, i think. I'd love to own a parrot again some day.
Speaking of wild parrots, i think they are really cool and interesting. I've seen a few species in zoo's, but i can't remember what kind of parrots they were.

[Sambhur]

Just a general reminder that this thread is in the Nature & Wildlife forum. If you're just going to talk about your pet parrots, I recommend posting here instead: Pet Birds. Keeps things a bit cleaner that way and doesn't derail any discussions that could be going on here one day. (:

Speaking of wild parrots, I got to see a species that I hadn't seen in the wild before while on my camping trip in Kosciuszko National Park the other week! Gang-gang c.ockatoos. :') They're so adorable oh my goodness.

[Quivira]

Briefly mentioning pet birds is fine. I'm currently the mom of an Umbrella C.ockatoo named Buiy who is my literal son. He goes to college with me and is a real cuddle bug. I also own 2 Caiques, 3 Quakers, a Parrotlet, and a Lineolated Parakeet, all of whom I miss dearly since I'm away.

As for wild parrots, I've only really seen feral Quakers and Nanday Conures in Florida, which were introduced by people letting them free. The Nandays are SUPER loud and you can always hear them in the mornings. The Quakers have their distinctive growling-like noise and sharp, but not as annoying, call, though I am more used to their vocals.
In Costa Rica, we saw a wild Scarlet Macaw that was a visitor of the zipline business we went to. She was beautiful and super comfortable with being around people. That was the only parrot we saw there though, unfortunately.

[Obedear]

Parrots are awesome. I particularly like c.ockatoos and macaws, though I own two sweet little budgies. They're my babies. There's also a couple of macaws at my local zoo, a scarlet macaw and a hyacinth macaw. The hyacinth will talk to you! She's super friendly and cute.