More Than 100 Flock to KCSPCA for Parrots

CAMDEN, Del. (WBOC) – Parrots sent people flying into the Kent County SPCA looking to adopt Friday.

The shelter took possession of 30 parrots from a home in Georgetown late last week. Word of that spread. And Friday morning officials showed up at work to find potential adopters waiting outside.     

The shelter started with two African grays, eight amazons and 20 macaws. After Friday’s outpouring of interest, 21 birds have been adopted or transferred.

When Mariam Moore heard about all the parrots at the KCSPCA she had to see for herself.

“I was amazed by how many Macaws there were in one place,” said Mariam Moore, of Wyoming. “You usually see one or two. They’re very expensive.”

“I just wanted to come and see them and maybe adopt another one,” said Alfredo Serrano, of Dover.

“I’m trying to talk my husband,” Toni Gray, from Magnolia, said. “Into adopting another one so it will have a good home.”

People crowded into a small room to look at the birds and start determining if one might be for them. Kevin Usilton, executive director of the KCSPCA, wasn’t expecting this kind of turnout. He says more than 100 people showed up throughout the day, and the phone was ringing non-stop.

“We were surprised, because macaws and amazons can be challenging to own as pets,” Usilton said.

He says the situation was unique because the woman who had these birds was a breeder, who realized she couldn’t handle them anymore, and voluntarily gave them to the shelter.

“Most of the time when the SPCA is involved with a large number of animals it’s a hoarding case or a cruelty case,” he said. “These animals were able to be processed very quickly and put up for adoption.”

Some of the birds aren’t ready for adoption yet. They’ll need more socialization before that can happen. And exactly how long that takes will vary bird to bird. In the meantime, people are weighing their options on the birds that are ready.

“I don’t have the dedication for taking care of a macaw, so I’m looking at the amazons,” Moore said. “I’ll be going home and making a decision. It’s a big decision. They’ll be with you for decades.”

That decades comment is very accurate. Some parrots can live as long as a human does. And they can be very expensive to take care, especially over that many years.

The shelter is carefully screening possible adopters. Usilton says not everyone is a good fit to own a bird. But he encourages anyone who might be interested and thinks they can handle it to come take a look.

Elderly parrots watch movies, relax on couch at new refuge in Coombs

Residents relaxed on a leather couch, catching up on videos, at the new extended care centre in Coombs on Tuesday.

In a converted school portable, the World Parrot Refuge has opened a quieter, slower-paced home for geriatric parrots to live out their lives, away from the squawks and bustle of the main pens, which are in a separate building.

There are 14 residents so far and they seem to be settling in well, said Wendy Huntbatch, owner of the refuge, which houses more than 900 unwanted or mistreated parrots from across Canada.

The parrots have been have been seized because of poor living conditions, or turned in by people who can no longer care for them.

The ages of the geriatric parrots are unknown, but several of them have been in Canada for 40 to nearly 70 years.

“This afternoon, they were watching Free Willy,” Huntbatch said of the senior flock. There are also DVDs of David Attenborough’s The Life of Birds that are expected to be popular, she said.

“There’s a nice fireplace, so it’s like a home, and there’s a big leather couch, but that won’t last long when they start chewing it up.”

More geriatric parrots will be added soon, but Huntbatch is moving slowly to avoid shocking fragile birds.

“We have four blind birds in there now and there will be more,” she said. “It will also be for the special-needs birds. Some of them are pretty battered up when they come here.”

Blindness from vitamin A deficiency, caused by lack of sunlight, arthritis, congestive heart failure and epilepsy are among problems that afflict aging parrots.

There are also birds damaged by human behaviour.

“A lot come in with fatty liver disease. Instead of flying around all day, they have to sit there like a bump on a log and don’t get any exercise. All they get to do is eat,” Huntbatch said.

“One of the birds came from a drug house. It took three weeks for him to sit up and do things on his own.”

In the geriatric unit, cage doors are open and there is an occupational therapy area for painting and beak carvings.

Parrot paintings and cards are sold to raise money to run the facility; Huntbatch hopes carvings will be on sale this summer.

“They are very tasteful,” she said.

The cost so far for the addition is about $40,000, said Huntbatch, who relies on donations and grants to run the refuge.

jlavoie@timescolonist.com

© Copyright 2013

Avoid Pet Bird Jealousy

By Gina Cioli/BowTie Studio/Courtesy Omar’s Exotic Birds
Include your pet bird as your prepare for the newcomer’s arrival to your home.

Introducing a new family member does not have to be a traumatic experience for your existing pet bird. Following a few simple suggestions can make a profound impact on how the new individual, human or animal, is accepted by your pet bird.

1) Avoid nasty surprises. Prepare your pet bird for the new arrival by telling it that there is a new member of the family coming. Your pet bird might not understand exactly what is happening but will know that you are sharing some important information, just as you would with any other family member.

2) Allow your pet bird to participate in preparations for the newcomer. Talk to it when setting up new equipment, regardless of whether it is a new cage or a crib for a child. It’s important that your bird clearly understands that the new addition will not usurp its position in the “flock.”

3) Maintain normal conditions as much as possible. If your bird’s cage needs to be moved to make room for the new addition, do so well in advance of the arrival date, so that it does not associate the newcomer with its being disrupted.

4) If possible, don’t overwhelm your pet bird with several new experiences at the same time — even good ones. Sometimes, people purchase a new cage for their existing pet bird when they get another bird. Lower stress levels by doing so long enough in advance for the existing bird to grow comfortable with it.  If the old cage is being given to the newcomer, have it repainted and install new perches and toys so that it appears different to its original owner.

5) Be the liaison with all new relationships. Always hold your existing pet bird the first time it actually sees the new arrival, even if it is a newborn child. For example, place the baby in a bassinet in another room then take your bird to see the newcomer. Adjust the baby’s blanket while holding your bird. Let the bird know that it is your first baby. Talk to the baby about how important your bird is. Tell your bird that the baby is important, too, and that you need the bird’s help taking care of it. If you do this, don’t be surprised if the bird begins to squawk when the child is fussy or if there is a problem. Many of my clients have found that their birds behaved like little “nannies” after having this talk with them! Follow similar guidelines with animal adoptions.

6) Do not expect your bird to love everyone you love. Only expect it to be well-behaved when they are around. If the newcomer is a romantic interest, hold the bird the first time it sees your human friend. If your bird accepts going to strangers, ask it to step on the person’s arm, praising it when he does. Take your bird back after stepping onto the other person’s arm, and praise it again, offering a food treat and a cuddle or scratch, whichever it prefers. The newcomer can offer treats if your bird is amenable. Never force the bird to go to someone when it does not want to. Allow your bird to grow comfortable with the new person in its own time.

7) Maintain the bird’s importance in the family. After the newcomer’s arrival, the existing bird can easily be incorporated into activities by placing it on a portable perch or gym or, the back of a metal folding chair or step stool, so that it can be part of the experience without actually needing to be handled. It is not necessary to do this every time you are interacting with the newcomer, but frequently enough to teach your little friend some social manners. Start with very short sessions, and praise your bird profusely when it remains perched. After it becomes more comfortable, brief words of praise, offered intermittently, will keep it there. Food rewards can be offered for birds that are motivated by their stomachs.

8) Consider the safety of all of your loved ones. Be realistic about the limitations of both small children and your bird. In cases where your bird is curious and climbs down to see the newcomer, keep it caged when you cannot supervise it, or place it on a perch that it cannot climb off of. Whatever the situation, remember to praise it. Include it verbally and visually while you are visiting or interacting with the newcomer.

9) Use physical barriers where necessary. When a baby becomes a curious toddler and may invade the bird’s cage, a baby fence or corral works very well when placed around the cage. They are readily available in most baby stores. If necessary, the fence may need to be used for several years until your child learns to respect the bird’s territory and well-being. That is OK. After all, it is better to keep your family intact, whenever possible.

10) Be patient and compassionate. It often takes time to incorporate all the elements of a new relationship with the old.  With love, patience, compassion and consideration toward all family members, your new relationship can actually enhance everyone’s lives, including that of your beloved pet bird.

Do you have a kid-hating parrot? Find out what to do here.

Is your bird jealous or territorial? Find out here.

Are Wild Parrots Roosting in Your Backyard?

The parrots are back.

After months of not hearing the pesky birds, Eagle Rock writer Andrew Hindes was recently surprised to see them around his house.

“They have returned en masse in the past few weeks, although the frequency has tapered off in the last few days,” he said. “So far, I’ve noticed them circling and swarming—and making quite a racket—rather than roosting in trees on our property.”

Not far from where Hindes lives on Highland View Avenue, Eagle Rock resident Tim O’Brien reports a similar experience.

“For about the past three weeks, there has been a flock of about 20 parrots that makes two or three ‘passes’ over our house in the mornings between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. and then again at dusk,” O’Brien said.

The birds, he added, engage in “a great deal of squawking and fly in formation, swooping this way and that, alight in a tree for a few minutes and then continue their noisy journey on to points unknown.”

As was the case almost exactly a year ago, parrots are roosting—or flocking together—in relatively large numbers once again in Eagle Rock.

“I saw them this morning for the first time,” wrote Julia Salazar, director of the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, in a Wednesday email to Eagle Rock Patch. “Strange sight. They seem to have flown away.”

Winter Roosters

During the fall and winter months, parrots tend to roost more than at any other time of the year, said Kimball Garrett, a birder who founded the California Parrot Project in 1994 and runs the ornithology collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

“During the warmer breeding season, the birds are a little more scattered, so you’d expect large roosts at this time,” explained Garrett. Although large numbers of parrots can gather into roosts year around, “the numbers involved tend to be a little higher in late fall and winter, and a little bit lower in spring and summer when they scatter around a bit more for nesting season.”

The traditional roosting areas for wild parrots are Temple City, South Pasadena and Altadena. “I don’t know of any big roosts closer to Eagle Rock,”  Garrett said.

But why do parrots appear to be so extravagantly visible, not to mention voluble, for a few minutes, days or weeks and then suddenly all but vanish?

“That’s what parrots do,” said Garrett. “They’re really good and finding and exploiting food resources that are kind of ephemeral—they might have fruit or some kind of seeds for just a few weeks and they find ’em and eat ’em all and then move on to somewhere else.”

Added Garrett: “It’s hard to predict exactly where that will take them—and when—but they certainly are good at moving around a lot.”

World Parrot Count

The constant movement can be challenge for ornithologists interested in knowing how many wild parrots there are in a particular urban area. And that’s why the winter months are usually a good time to count parrots—as a Europe-based group called City Parrots is doing right now for conservation purposes, with help from volunteers.

Click here to read instructions fro City Parrots on how to count wild parrots in your neighborhood and submit the results to the organization online.

Affiliated with the International Ornithologists Union, City Parrots is especially devoted to monitoring parrots that have been introduced to urban areas and are not native to them, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.

None of the three major species of parrots found in and around Eagle Rock, including Mount Washington, are native to Southern California, according to Garrett. (They include Red-Crowned Parrots native to Eastern Mexico; Yellow-Chevroned Parakeets native to South America; and Mitred Parakeets, also native to South America.)

There are currently no large-scale local attempts to conduct parrot counts in Southern California, according to Garrett. “Some years we try to do that, but nothing’s been really organized for this year,” he says.

Christmas Bird Count

The closest thing to a local parrot count is the Christmas Bird Count conducted annually for the past 65 years by the Pasadena Audubon Society.

The exercise occurs within a 15-mile diameter centered at the intersection of San Gabriel Boulevard and Duarte Road in Pasadena, which lies roughly five miles east of the Eagle Rock border. The latest Christmas Bird Count was on Dec. 15 last year.

“I haven’t totaled the results yet, but we typically record hundreds of Red-crowned Parrots, fair numbers of Mitred and Red-masked Parakeets and Yellow-chevroned Parakeets as well as smaller numbers of at least a half dozen other species of parrots and parakeets,” said Jon Fisher, head of the Pasadena Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count.

Although the Christmas Bird Count circle extends southwest to Scholl Canyon and Occidental College, those areas were not covered in 2012, Fisher said.

Parrot plots world domination from atop his motorized mech

Few things would be as horrific as a flock of parrots invading your hometown astride mechanized vehicles of death and cuteness. The good news is, they can’t kill us all, someone has to be around to hand out crackers and change the newspaper. If you’ve ever been to home where someone owns a bird or if you’ve ever owned a bird yourself, you know they can be noisy creatures constantly shrieking. A man named Andrew Gray has an African Grey Parrot that was a noisy creature.

Apparently, Andrew tried all sorts of things to quiet the bird including an automated squirt gun that would spray the bird each time he squawked. However, as it turned out the parrot like to get wet. Plan foiled. So Andrew did what any bird owner would do, just prior to reaching for a BB gun, he built the parrot its own little parrot car.

Andrew’s idea was to build a little car that his parrot could sit on that would allow the bird to follow his owner around the house. The wheeled vehicle has what appear to be a pair of remote-controlled monster truck tires in the front and freewheeling casters in the back. It has a perch for the bird to sit on and a joystick that the bird can grab with his beak to steer the vehicle around.

The entire works reminds me quite a bit of one of those robotic vacuum cleaners. The BirdBuggy, as the creator calls it, even has a robotic mode to allow the little vehicle to automatically seek out its charging station using a camera integrated into the design. The buggy also has bump sensors and an infrared collision avoidance system.

[via Jalopnik]

Parrot News

Parrot News

updated: Nov 23, 2012, 2:00 PM

By Kathee Miller

I saw a post the other day on the parrots- and thought I might add that the wild flock of (Lilac crowned
Amazon parrots plus there was hybrid before) have been around a very long time.

I have had the pleasure of their returning presence from Montecito where their base is, to the San
Roque/Foothill Rd. area each year!! I am sure others who live in the area know their sounds!

They are busy feeding in the walnut trees, on the lines preening, up in the tall Euc tree tops with their wild
abandon. They are prey to Cooper’s Hawks so their survival is always at risk. Yesterday as they flew out of
a Euc I snapped a photo that shows the count of 13 now which is great. This flock has been followed by SB
Bird farm folks (see their online site) since the 1970′s. Happy birding.

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Parrots imitate others just so they know who they’re talking to

Alasdair Wilkins

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As humans, we can start a conversation with someone else and be pretty confident they will know we’re talking to them. This is one of those things that’s so basic we forget to even take it for granted. But this is much, much trickier for parrots — and it might explain their gift for mimicry.

After all, even if we find ourselves in a crowded room, we can always single out a particular person for conversation by walking over to them, saying their name, or — and this is really the “if all else fails option”, but I’ve found it to be effective — shouting and gesturing like a lunatic until the other person finally gets the hint and comes over. But parrots and their relatives — including the the orange-fronted conures, a kind of parakeet found throughout much of Central America — have to get a little more creative if they want to start a conversation with a specific bird in the flock.

Parakeets live in what’s known as a “network environment,” which means lots of different flocks constantly meshing together. While some parrot species seem to have developed “names” for other individuals, in which they use very specific bird calls to indicate they’re talking to one parrot in particular, that isn’t an option for the orange-fronted conures, who interact with hundreds of birds each week.

If you’re a parrot — in which case, congratulations on being able to read and operate the internet — then the smart thing to do in this situation would be to come up with one particular call for yourself, rather than hundreds of different address calls for every other parrot in your flock. That’s exactly what the orange-fronted conures do, and this is where the parrot’s preternatural gift for imitation comes into play.

In order to start a conversation with a specific bird, a parrot simply mimics that bird’s own personal contact call. According to Danish researchers, orange-fronted conures responded significantly quicker in both lab and wild environments when addressed with an imitation of their own call. It’s a rather remarkable idea that each parrot has to mimic someone else if they want to talk to them, particularly if you translated the notion to humans.

As amusing as it is to imagine humans constantly doing bad impressions of each other — and let’s be honest, this is humans we’re talking about, the impressions will be bad — that actually might not be the best comparison. After all, the alternative, in which each bird comes up with hundreds of address calls, is more like the human equivalent of start conversations with other people with descriptive addresses like “You there with the baseball cap and the blue eyes and the bad acne!”, whereas the conures’ contact calls might be more like each person giving themselves a nickname, then expecting to be addressed by that nickname.

The point, I think, is that we should model human interaction on parrots, because it would be hilarious, and possibly lead to fistfights. For another, slightly more scientific takeaway, let’s go to researcher Dr. Thorsten Balsby of the University of Aarhus:

“Many species of parrots live part of the year in flocks. Living in flocks may be challenging and require a flexible vocalization system. The vocal imitation of orange-fronted conures is probably tightly linked to the fission-fusion flock dynamics that results in frequent encounters and interactions with many different individuals. In natural interactions, orange-fronted conures continue to imitate each other after they have established contact. The function of these prolonged imitative interactions is not known yet but may be related to some kind of negotiation regarding the decision to make a flock fuse with another flock.”

PLoS ONE via BBC News. Image by PolkoChan on Flickr.

Performing Parrots Flock to San Lorenzo November 10

The San Lorenzo Library will host a free family event November 10 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. The public is invited.

The library will welcome The Happy Birds Performing Parrot Show.

These lively birds will strut their stuff singing songs, performing tricks and even posing for photos with youngsters. Some even do animal impersonations, talk to the audience and ride high wire bikes.

You can see a video gallery of some of their past performances here and photos of them here.

The birds’ owners, Ed and Julie Cardoza, have been performing with them since 1989 and have appeared on television and stage before thousands.

For more information about the event, call the library at 510-670-6283. The performance will take place on the main floor of the library which is located at 395 Paseo Grande, San Lorenzo.

Parrots’ cards raise money for geriatric flock in Coombs

One artist is blind, another is epileptic, and they all paint with their feet and tails.

Geriatric and chronically ill parrots at the World Parrot Refuge in Coombs are creating artwork for cards, which are then sold to raise money for a parrot palliative-care unit.

“In the last couple of years, we have become the go-to place for senior citizen parrots,” said refuge president Wendy Huntbatch, who is caring for almost 900 birds.

Some are blind, some suffer from arthritis and some don’t seem to be quite as sharp as they used to be.

“Some of them just want to sleep and watch Littlest Hobo on TV,” Huntbatch said. “Their minds seem to wander.”

That makes it difficult for older or sick birds living in flocks where friends or relatives try to persuade them to take part in parrot activities, Huntbatch said.

The answer is a 111-square-metre trailer with electricity, plumbing and a steel lining.

The renovations to create the geriatric parrot centre will cost about $15,000, and Huntbatch is hoping the cards, sold in the gift shop and online, will help.

The artists include a macaw called Hello, who is more than 60 years old and blind because of a vitamin deficiency; Bailey, a 20-year-old umbrella cockatoo who had a foot amputated after catching it in a toy; JR, an Amazon parrot caught in the wild 38 years ago and treated for epilepsy for the past 36; and Lago, a 22-yearold Moluccan cockatoo with bone and lung cancer.

Huntbatch started providing the parrots with finger paints last year. Some throw paint at the canvas, others like the sweeping effect of tail feathers and some enjoy using their feet.

Money raised through the cards, which cost $5 each, will go directly to the palliative unit, but Huntbatch is also struggling to raise money for the refuge’s day-to-day operations.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to make the next payroll. It’s really tight.”

The refuge is the only one in Canada and takes birds from across the country.

“We have received a large number of birds this year that are not financially supported. Many are coming in from rescue organizations that cannot find homes for them and cannot afford to keep them,” Huntbatch said.

Even though all fruit and vegetables are donated by Save-on-Foods, it costs $1,339 a day to run the refuge.

In addition to volunteers, there are 18 paid staff.

“There are 295 water dishes to be washed and refilled, 505 seed and nut dishes and trays to be cleaned and refilled, 236 fresh fruit dishes and trays to be filled every single day – and that’s just a small part of the enormous amount of work it takes,” Huntbatch said.

To see the parrot-painted cards, go to worldparrotrefuge.org.

jlavoie@timescolonist.com

Live From the Field: Africa’s Most Endangered Parrot Hanging On…

This photograph was taken by Rodnick Biljon (King William’s Town’s “Cape parrot whisperer”) under 24 hours ago… For the 11 weeks this young female Cape parrot has been stuck in this same tree, recovering from a debilitating beak and feather disease infection that destroyed her flight feathers and ripped out most of her down feathers. It is an absolute miracle that she has survived so long in the middle of King William’s Town (South Africa), having pushed through bitterly cold weather and the constant threat of predation. We called her “Lady Grey” after a nearby village that her flock from the Stutterheim area would have flown over in search of food in 2011 when drought hit the region. They were making 300 mile round trips from their mountain strongholds every day in search of food. Some parrots like “Lady Grey” just could not keep up! PLEASE SEND YOUR BEST WISHES TO THIS BRAVE CAPE PARROT THAT NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT IN REAL TIME!!!

Rodnick Biljon discovered her in late July when he saw her flying overhead in a flock he monitors for the Cape Parrot Project. A few days later he found her in the wild plum tree she is still in today. At some point towards the end of July she had glided down from the mountains and discovered that she could not possibly fly back, crippled by beak and feather disease and under attack due to her depleted immune system. Rodnick has been photographing the Cape parrots of King William’s Town for over 6 years, spending most of his time with the parrots. He has been with this brave hen for most of the 11 weeks and his special whistle visibly comforts her. As you can see on 18 August, she was very tired and needed a safe place to fight this debilitating disease. She has been silent and invisible green for almost three months and it seems to be working… She still needs to gain a lot of weight and flight will probably not be possible within the next month or two. Do we intervene now after so long or risk another month?

“Lady Grey” has now cleared most of the wild plums from half of the tree and is eating regularly. She has no access to water and has to rely on the fruits. We are contemplating the erection of a water trough in the tree… Every week we discuss the possibility of catching her and rehabilitating her for release back into the wild. We have done this successfully with Cape parrots that could not even support their own body weight. See this National Geographic video for that story: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/specials/in-the-field-specials/boyes-cape-parrot/ Every week we decide to prepare for a capture, but let her carry on doing it herself… If she pulls this off, she would have achieved something truly amazing that gives us hope for the future. These little parrots can hunker down and fight this disease! With less than 1,000 remaining in the wild and beak and feather disease outbreak ripping through all remaining populations, we could be held up to judgement if she dies before being able to fly free again. Something happening to our impressive “Lady Grey” is a constant threat looming over us…

Please post your comments of whether we should intervene and rehabilitate this endangered parrot or give her every chance to recover naturally in the wild? There is no doubt that Cape parrots are endangered because human beings destroyed their natural habitat by removing most of the large hardwoods for commercial timber. When do we take responsibility for our actions or is it most responsible to leave nature to its own devices? How do we best serve the Cape parrot, Africa’s most endangered parrot and ambassadors of the decimated Afromontane yellowwood forests they depend upon?

31 July: Rodnick had been watching her almost on a daily basis for a week and was getting increasingly worried. When is it time to intervene with a wild parrot that could be rehabilitated in captivity? (Rodnick Biljon)

31 July: Low energy levels, degraded flight feathers, and no muscle have this poor female Cape Parrot grounded in this tree vulnerable to cold condiitions and nocturnal predators. She is alone and every one of her instincts are telling her to fly away to the mountains, but she cannot… (Rodnick Biljon)

1 August: Almost asleep in the middle of the day. From the day she arrived in this tree she was just too warn out to fly or move. You coulkd see that she had surrendered to fate and knew that she could on fight on from this tree of life. (Rodnick Biljon)

1 August: We recorded a 100% infection rate in 2011, but did not catch Cape parrots in 2012 to avoid any disturbance at this critical time. We know there is a problem and now simply need to solve it. (Rodnick Biljon)

18 August: After two weeks in the same tree in nighttime temperatures that had people indoors was working, as she had, at least, still alive and eating between long sleeps. The nagging questions were “when do we help her?” and “how long does she need to suffer?”. (Rodnick Biljon)

31 August: After a month in this wild plum tree her conditions seems to be getting worse, as the down feathers continue to fall out. We are currently testing these feathers for Pssitacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD) virus. (Rodnick Biljon)

4 September: The yellow feathers are thought to be the product of an immune reaction that consumes the color pigments. See how the coverage of yellow feathers has increased. Rodnick spends lots of time with her to ensure that she does not fall out of the tree and be attacked or captured. By this time she had formed a strong attachment to Rodnick, which was clear when he approached and made his whistle. Rodnick is our “Cape parrot whisperer” in King William’s Town! (Steve Boyes)

10 September: She exposes her degraded down feathers and poor condition when she jumps to another branch to hide from accumulated onlookers. (Rodnick Biljon)

10 September: Sick Cape parrot perched under the cool, soothing green of the canopy… (Rodnick Biljon)

17 September: Still hanging on after 6 weeks eating wild plums and weathering the brutal cold snaps in the same tree. Her flight feathers are too degraded for sustained flight and her down feathers are too degraded to keep her warm, so infection is taking over. When do we intervene? (Rodnick Biljon)

28 September: After two month in the same tree, the supply of wild plums is about 50% full and her condition has not improved significantly. She seems, at last, to be gaining weight and growing feathers! Every night, however, we risk her being taken by a domestic cat, but this tree is proving to be safe for now. She is eating well, but does not seem to gain weight or improve?! (Rodnick Biljon)

12 October: Young female Cape parrot that has been stuck in the same tree for over two and half months due to advanced symptoms of beak and feather disease. This photograph was taken less than 24 hours ago on the 12th October 2012. She has been there since early August… (Rodnick Biljon)

Please also join the Cape Parrot Project group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/capeparrotproject/ 

This is the largest parrot conservation group on Facebook and will keep you up-to-date on developments with “Lady Grey”… Some beautiful photographs by Rodnick Biljon from earlier in the year…

5 April: Stunning vision of a healthy male Cape parrot in the canopy of a wild plum tree in King William’s Town (South Africa). (Rodnick Biljon)

15 May: Female Cape parrot feeding on the nutritious, oily kernel of the yellowwood fruit. This consumption has been linked to breeding successes in the 2009/2010 breeding season. This fruit also has strong anti-microbial action that could help stave off beak and feather disease infection… (Rodnick Biljon)

28 June: The future of the species in a stunning pair of Cape parrots. In 2012, we recorded a high proportion of juvenile parrots in feeding flocks, but did not se these parrots in 2011. We hope that the yellowwood fruits in King William’s Town have stimulated breeding attempts in the Amathole mountains… (Rodnick Biljon)

We urgently require further funding for the testing of Cape parrot for Pssitacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD) and the development of mechanisms to fight outbreaks in the wild population. The Wild Bird Trust, Conservation International, Percy FitzPatrick Institute, Hans Hoheisen Charitable Trust, Abax Investments, and Mazda Wildlife Fund are planting thousands upon thousands of indigenous trees and erecting hundreds of nest boxes for Cape parrots in the Amathole mountains. Please help us continue this important research and community-based conservation work by donating to the Cape Parrot Project via the World Parrot Trust: http://www.parrots.org/capes/

The Cape Parrot is threatened in the wild by habitat loss, illegal trade and disease. Your donation will help us to conduct research vital to the species survival and enforce laws to stop the wild bird trade.

MUST SEE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VIDEO ON CAPE PARROT PROJECT: 

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/specials/in-the-field-specials/boyes-cape-parrot/