I went to visit a man last weekend. He has parrots, falcons, hawks, eagles, chickens, etc. I had such a great time!
We found his place and drove up. We didn't see anyone around, so we went ahead and rang his doorbell. Nothing. I was getting a bit worried that he wasn't home or something! Finally, we heard a "Hello?" coming from around back, so we ventured back there. The first thing we saw was a falcon sitting on a perch under a tree. She was gorgeous! We met him and he was just as nice as he was on the phone! He didn't waste any time and took us over to the falcon and picked her up. Let us kind of look at her and let me feel her talons. He then took us over to where a Greenwing Macaw was sitting on top of his cage outside. I think he had just had a bath and was basking and drying out in the sun. He said he was nice, but didn't like men. He got him down off the cage after a few attempts, and the GW let me give him scritches. After that, he showed us two Bufon (sp?) Macaws that kept wanting to step up and blushing at us.
After some talking, we went back into where his aviaries were. When we first walked in, he explained how everything was set up so that we wouldn't be taken by surprise if a bird happened to fly at us or something. We went back and the first thing we saw was a HUGE Golden Eagle. She was SO beautiful! He picked her up and held her for us. Then, we went back to the first aviary, which held two Peregrine Falcons. That one had a clutch of babies and he removed one and let me hold and interact with it for a bit. The baby was humongous! Haha I didn't think the baby would be that big!
After all of that, we went and toured the rest of the aviaries. He had Peregrine Falcons and Gyrfalcons. They were so gorgeous. Some of them were strictly breeders/hunting birds and some of them were more of pets, he referred to them as "imprint" birds. One of them even played fetch with him. It was so much fun. After seeing some one day old hatchling falcons, we moved on to his parrots. He has breeding pairs of Umbrella Cockatoos, Molluccan Cockatoos, Greenwing Macaws, and Blue Throated Macaws! The Umbrellas weren't much for people and went straight into their nestbox and didn't come back out. The male Molluccan was in the nest box, but the female used to be a pet and came out and watched us. The male Greenwing was wild, but the female used to be a pet and can talk. He said when she gets a bit stressed (like she was with strangers in there) she reverts back to more of her pet life. She would repeat "Pretty Birdy!" over and over. The male would then get angry with her. It was neat to watch. The Blue Throated Macaws were my favorite in that room because I had never seen that species before! It was very interesting. He told us they were very smart and they were the only ones that had to have a padlock on their cage!
All of his birds were in great feather and seemed very healthy. The female Greenwing had her head plucked a bit, and he explained that during breeding season the male over grooms the female, and then once breeding season is over she goes back to being fully feathered. I thought that was pretty interesting.
After this, and after visiting with his chickens, we went into his house to sit down for a bit and talk. He let me borrow one of his books on parrots, which I really appreciated! He was more into birds of prey, obviously, than parrots. And more in to breeding than the pet trade. We talked for another hour or so about what I was interested in, etc. He also had Cuban Amazons, but they are being housed at a friend's home because they needed a quieter environment. He talked to me about some rescuers that he knows as well as some breeders and gave me their name and numbers, which I thought was very nice of him. We got along great, and I had the best time that I have had in a very long time!
As we went to leave, we went to visit the Greenwing Macaw one more time. His name is Bandito. We went up to his cage and the man (I'm not mentioning his name just in case he doesn't want it mentioned) decided to try and get him to step up again. Like he had said before, Bandito doesn't like men and kept lunging at him. He finally got him to step up and Bandito let me pet him again. My girlfriend tried to pet him and he went to bite her. He let me scratch and scratch him for awhile, until finally the man asked me if I wanted to hold him. I said yes, even though I've never held such a big bird! He was huge! I asked him to step up and he came right to me. I kept giving him scritches on his head and after awhile of this, he laid his head on my chest and cuddled with me! Oh my goodness, my heart melted. I've never really been a big fan of Macaws, but this guy hooked me. I fell in love with him. He loved me, too, it seemed. Cuddled with me for a few minutes and if anyone else tried to come close, he lunged at them! He was gorgeous and sooo sweet.
Like I said, I had an awesome time. I am planning on meeting with a bird breeder next weekend, as well as a lady with 16 parrots! I will post here about my experiences with them as well. I will add pictures when I get home!
No comments:
Post a Comment