Getting My Umbrella Cockatoo to Trust Me Again

Linus, umbrella cockatoo

I have been asked by so many people how Linus, my umbrella cockatoo, is doing since his return home from his vacation in New Mexico that I think an update is in order!
To recap: Circumstances made it necessary to send Linus away for about 4 months. He was with a friend who is probably the only person I know who is capable of handling the bird that Linus might have become when he arrived. Fortunately, her skills were never put to the test.

 

You can only imagine ...

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A 3-Step Plan To Turning Your One Person Bird Into A Family Bird

Camelot macaws and blue throated macaw

One of the most common questions we receive at BirdTricks is how to get the family parrot to be a family parrot and not just Mom’s bird, or little Joey’s bird. It is frustrating and disappointing to have a bird in the house that doesn’t want to be loved by you. It hurts and it turns what should be a wonderful experience sour in the eyes of those rejected.
In most homes facing this problem, the bird’s behavior is reinforced on a daily basis. ...

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Fallen In Love With Your Friend’s Bird And Want One Just Like It? Read This Before You Buy…

Bandit and Bondi, rosebreasted cockatoos

When you go to the BirdTricks Facebook page you see a whole lotta cute going on! Everyone posts adorable pictures of their birds and shares stories of their antics and accomplishments. It’s hard to not have a big grin on your face as you roam from post to post.

Then there’s BirdTrick’s YouTube where the Womach’s upload their videos of their own birds. Two big favorites are Bandit and Bondi, their rosebrested cockatoos, or galahs, as they are called in some parts of the ...

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Teaching Your Birds “Bad Words” – Why You Shouldn’t

Hyacinth macaw

 

There was a video on Youtube some years ago featuring an african grey with the nastiest vocabulary I have ever heard. It said not only the worst of the worst words known to English slang, but it used them to descriptively detail human anatomy.

It was obvious that these words had not been simply overheard and repeated – they had been taught. The video had a gazillion hits on it. I am by no means prudish, but hearing these words said with an african grey’s perfect clarity, my jaw ...

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Bigger Brains Are NOT Better Brains

Camelot macaw

As I was driving the other day, I was thinking about the huge contribution that Irene Pepperberg and the amazing Alex made to our knowledge of avian cognition. Without she and Alex, and our acceptance of her findings, I wonder if the avian community would be using terms like “enrichment” today.
Life was uncertain for Dr. Pepperberg. She became outcast among her peers. Grants to fund her work were hard to come by and it must have seemed to her that her career was always on the verge of ...

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Do You Spend Too Much Money on Your Bird?

Storm, blue fronted amazon

In my early days of bird ownership, pre-internet, doing right by my birds was a lot of guess work. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I came upon learning that an all seed diet, then the norm, was inadequate. I discovered this in two ways: 1) by going to the library and studying the diet of my species wild counterparts, and 2) observing them descending on the vegetables on my plate at dinnertime. That was a hard to miss clue.

I didn’t exactly struggle with bird care ...

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