Macawnutz
Seriously Nutz!
Super Administrator
Vendor
Avenue Veteran
Celebirdy of the Month
Mayor of the Avenue
Avenue Spotlight Award
Our "Mayor of the Avenue" award
is presented to a member who exhibits the qualities that distinguish them to be an upstanding credit to the Avenue,
a loving, informed, conscientious and caring bird parront and an all around good neighbor.
I am happy to announce that @Zilga is July's Mayor of the Month.
is presented to a member who exhibits the qualities that distinguish them to be an upstanding credit to the Avenue,
a loving, informed, conscientious and caring bird parront and an all around good neighbor.
I am happy to announce that @Zilga is July's Mayor of the Month.
1. What kind of birds do you have (age, species and names)?
We have 10 now! Olive ( F BH pionus, 1.5), Fig (M BH pionus, 1.5), Nugget (F cockatiel, 4.5), Smokey (M cockatiel, 3ish), Alistair (F white-winged parakeet, almost 2), Gertie (F white-winged parakeet 4ish), Mochi (F Bourke's parakeet 2 ish), Zuki (M Bourke's, 1.5), Ube (F Bourke's, 1.5), Oni (F Bourke's, 1.5).
2. What got you interested in birds? My husband and I have always loved birds and we each had parakeets when we were teenagers. Our bird revival occurred as adults when we got Nuggs, but she was a solo bird for a while for various reasons. Once we were comfortable with getting more birds, we expanded our flock pretty quickly.
3. What have your birds brought to your life? I love how differently they think. I like that they have their own agendas and opinions on things but have an intelligence that is so different from ours.
4. What have you learned from sharing your life with your birds? Patience. They do what they want to do when they want to do it, and training them is not like dog training, as their moods are more variable.
5. What's one birdie memory that will stay with you forever? The first time Nuggs and I had a training session where she did something that I honestly didn't think she'd ever do (shaking hands - she doesn't use her feet to hold things, so I didn't think it would work but wanted to try out of curiosity), it really gave me an appreciation for how much they can learn if you approach it the right way.
6. Where is your birds main living area? We have two; the pionuses and white-winged parakeets are in the living room and the cockatiels and Bourke's are in our dining room that we converted to a bird room.
7. Did you change things in your home to accommodate your birds and if so what kinds of things did you change? Oh, yeah. We turned the end of our dining room into an aviary for the cockatiels/Bourke's, which means that room is now the "bird room" because there's almost as much bird as people furniture there. Otherwise, we have tree stands all over - in the aviary, outside it, in the living room, and in my office, as well as hanging perches in the living room and bird rooms. We also have air purifiers in every room, in addition to numerous bins of medical/food/toy supplies.
8. Are you involved in any kind of bird related group or activities? I'm not now. I used to be in some facebook groups, and our area had a bird group, but it hasn't been active in a while so I unfortunately didn't get to join.
9. What is the one luxury item you would love to have for your bird(s)? We'd like to put in an outdoor aviary or enclose our deck to provide that kind of outdoor space. Time got away from us this year, but we will likely get it in at some point. If I had infinite resources, moving south to have a fancy outdoor aviary space would be living the dream.
10. Is there any bird that you dream of owning and if so why? Nope, I'm happy with our flock and don't foresee us making any additions. I've always thought the mini-macaws were interesting birds, if time were unlimited, and my husband would likely consider a Goffin 'too if Olive weren't already his bestie.
11. Describe a typical day with you at home with your birds. Whoever gets up first (usually my husband during the week) makes breakfast - chunks of veggies and some fruit for the S. American birds and veggie chop for the Aussie ones - and changes out water. Nuggs and sometimes Smokey come up to my office for the workday while Olive and Fig hang out with my husband during work, he changes papers at lunch/afternoon as needed, and we often hang out with the Bourke's around diner time and Gertie and Alistair in the evenings. Usually one day a weekend ends up being a bird day where we are hanging with everyone all afternoon/deep cleaning/refreshing toys.
12. What have you learned about owning birds that you would like to share? This may be controversial, but half the reason we have so many is that we have had really good luck with our birds all having same-species friends. We decided to move that direction when we realized how lonely Mochi was, and it has worked out really well so far. It's quieter than when we only had a few, I don't feel as guilty if I happen to have a busy day and can't spend as much time with them as I'd like, and it hasn't really been much more work. Also that Bourke's have way more interesting personalities than we thought; ours are not hand tame but they still like hanging out with us and are good at letting us know what they want. They're also smarter at problem solving than the 'tiels.
13. If you knew then what you know now about birds, what would you do differently? I wish I appreciated how challenging veterinary issues are. Even with a great avian vet, the risk balance of stress versus any procedure, plus the lack of good data on anything nonstandard, makes any illness far more challenging than with our dogs. Once we dealt with a couple of issues, we assembled an extensive at-home kit to deal with emergencies, and I wish we'd had that together before we got any birds. Unrelated to health, but I'd have just sprung for the Celltei pack o birds right away rather than trying a bunch of backpack carriers that no one really liked as much as the shoulder carriers.
14. What other hobbies do you have? I have three dogs, and I like hiking and gardening. We haven't gotten out as much this year because of the weather, but last summer we took the birds on walks more often, and they had a great time.
15. Anything else you would like to share? I can't believe how much there is know, and how much we'd get into it once we got serious about birds. We went from having a single cockatiel to a large flock in about 2 years, and I went from pretty casual bird ownership to concocting our own seed mixes and making toys, and rearranging our house to be bird safe and friendly. We're having an amazing time with it!
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Pretty please
you have such a gorgeous flock
Your flock is so cute! I also agree that Bourke's have such a Big personality!