There’s a common misconception that working in wildlife rescue means working with lots of amazingly cute and cuddly animals. Unfortunately, the real situation is quite different. A LOT of wild rescue work results in the animal being euthanised because they’re usually extremely ill before they come to someone’s notice for rescue.

Not many photos of dead animals make it to the media and no decent rescuer is going to be stressing out a seriously ill ...

Blue throated macaw

Flight is the one characteristic that birds have that distinguishes them from all other animals. A bird’s entire physiology is designed for flight. And its emotional health is tied into its ability to fly. It is something that we at Birdtricks are very passionate about.

Recently, a member of our community, Parker, posted on Facebook about a frustrating experience he had with his breeder: the lady weaning his young macaw clipped his bird’s wings after he had told her NOT to.

This made us all angry because Parker ...

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Umbrella cockatoo

Parrots are picky eaters. Which, when you think about it, is strange for an animal who spends the majority of its life in the search for food in the wild. You’d kind of think that they would be a little more forgiving when it comes to the meals we serve. Far be it for a parrot to make anything simple.

That leaves it up to we humans to figure out some way to get them to try the foods we know are good for them. Sometimes the answer has little ...

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It can be extraordinarily frustrating watching others successfully train their birds while you can’t even get your bird to look at the obvious types of treats available.  Not all of us have a bird that is happy to take a sunflower seed or something similar as a reward for training. I’ve seen many people give up on training for this reason.

Most birds will happily work for some sort of nut (favourites ...

photo by chieftanwildrice.com

Q: Is it okay to give my bird dried fruit instead of fresh?
Martine B., Stuttgart, Germany

A: Dried fruits have some wonderful advantages. They are small and convenient and they taste great. Being dry, they are perfect for use in foraging toys. When broken into small pieces, they are great for training. But there are some concerns about using them.

Fruits have a high water content and the drying (dehydrating) process simply removes the moisture. As a result, they shrink considerably in size. The biggest problem ...

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Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Athol, ID
Pictured with: Alexandrine parakeet “Rasta”

With our parrot stunt show ParrotFX finally ready for stage, and the photoshoot concluded for it (as well as the training) I have finally had the mental space for Rasta full-time. Today is the first day that Dave and I haven’t been completely and entirely CONSUMED with something ParrotFX-related. It feels freeing. Now, we have about 7 or less days to produce our magic show for Silverwood Theme Park and I sit in ...