Cockatiels are probably the most commonly known for having the worst cases of night frights among parrots. Usually, night frights occur for mainly the smaller birds but I have heard of a few cases of it happening for larger birds as well; including my own. I've had one bird fall off a perch during the night or begin having their own night terror...

Back in January 2006, we bought three macaws; two blue and gold macaws and one military macaw. They were all around the age of 6 months old and were shipped to us while in Henderson, Nevada. We were preparing for the show we would perform for 13 months straight on the island of Saipan with them entitled Magical Flight. Jersey and Chayko, the two...

Photo by Dave Location: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands Hugging: Blue and Gold Macaw "Chayko" Earning your bird's trust can be hard depending on your bird's situation. One of my favorite behaviors to train is based on trust and that is getting your parrot to lay on its back; whether it's on a hard surface or in your arms. It's important to g...

  Photo by Dave Location: Orlando, Florida On back: Congo African Grey "Cressi" and Galah "Bondi"  I recently joined a really great parrot related forum. A user named Cheryl asked for advice on how to properly socialize her six birds and I ended up writing to her about how I socialized my Congo African Grey, Cressi, with my Rose Breasted Cocka...

My favorite type of training is behavior shaping. It can also be the hardest because it requires finding a natural behavior your bird already does and having a clicker on hand to let the bird know it's a good thing to continue to do for a reward. I trained my galah, Bondi, (featured in the video above with Dave Womach) to do what is called "Th...

Photo by Jamieleigh Location: Reno, Nevada Sleeper: Swainson Toucan "Meaka" One of my favorite things about Toucans is how they sleep. This picture is of Meaka, a Swainson Toucan I adopted from a lady in Sandpoint, Idaho of all places. She owned a petshop there and Meaka's original name was Skittles. She didn't know her name yet, so I chose ...