My exceptionally well behaved Blue and Gold Macaw - Fid.

Last night, I was 2.5 hrs late home. It wasn’t controllable or predictable. Who can predict being stuck in stationary traffic while a drunk tow truck driver kept blocking and unblocking the road (even though he wasn’t trying to tow anyone?!?) No one was going anywhere until he either got arrested or got off the road and let the traffic move again.

I have an erratic schedule at the best of times, so the birds ...

Blue throated and camelot macaws

When you have parrots, the word “patience” is always on the tip of your tongue. Their odd and unpredictable behaviors would send you straight to the madhouse without patience. Those moments of seasonal insanity would certainly push you over the edge without patience. On certain days, even normal events like the sun-up and sundown calls might not be endurable without patience. Patience has its place.

The definition of patience is this: The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. It ...

Working really hard in a genetics lab class.

There are a few different pathways to becoming a vet in Australia. Traditionally it has been a 5-year undergraduate university bachelor degree, which would allow you to apply for registration as a vet. This requirement has changed. You now have to complete an appropriate undergraduate science degree and a postgraduate Doctorate of Veterinary Science (7-8 years full time). Certain subjects must be covered in the undergraduate degree in order to meet DVM pre-requisites. The ...

Sometimes when faced with behavioral issues with our birds, we immediately quantify them as BIG problems, potentially unfixable problems. But what we fail to realize when we’re “in the trenches” is that often times, our biggest problems can be solved much quicker than we’d even imagine once we apply some new training techniques. In Lauren’s case, she was able to solve her “big step-up problem” in as little as 2 days!

MEET OLIVER

Lauren Moore and her husband are ...

The momentum of success is powerful. Every time I read another success story of people applying what they learn through the Bird Tricks training program, it inspires me to work harder with and devote even more time to enriching the lives of my own birds. I hope it makes you feel the same.

I particularly love this next story about a resourceful 15 year old girl who got her cockatoo to eat his veggies, all through the power of flight training.

MEET PUPPY

Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo. The youngest/newest member of my local wild flock.

There is a golden rule for Wildlife Rescuers in Australia. When you rescue an animal and rehabilitate it for release, it must be released back to the location where it was originally found. It’s actually illegal to release it anywhere else without a written exemption from the appropriate governing body. If you can’t release back to the original site and can’t get permission for an exemption then the animal is usually euthanized. It ...