A Day in the Life: Dollar Stores, Egrets and Ducks: Part 1

(Mattie Returning From Her “Morning Constitutional”)
Even on a day off, the morning routine doesn’t waver. I still have to get everyone up and get them fed. But at least I don’t have to do it at 5:30 in the morning!
I take out the Parrot’s breakfast I dished up the night before…
…warm up their bean mix [...]

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“Ask The Bird Experts” Interview, or “I’m Not an Expert but I Can Talk About “Chop!”

I’m being interviewed Sunday night at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on a Webcast at: “Ask the Bird Experts” Here’s the link:
tp://www.ezleadcapture.com/member/thebirdtalks1.htm
And they want me to talk about my “Chop” recipe. No surprise there. And I’m happy to do it because It’s a concept I can believe in.
It’s been a little overwhelming because while I thought [...]

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Parker vs Paper Plate

Parker knows how to play!

 
I’m a lucky parrot person. Parker knows how to play with cheap stuff: like paper plates. In this footage, I caught about the last two minutes of about FORTY minutes of Parker messing around with a simple white paper plate. (Forgive the shaky video, I had just gotten the camera and [...]

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The Petco Festival in Naples: A Flappin’ Good time!

 

I was invited by the Naples, Florida Petco to join in the festivities and participate in their First Annual Pet Festival. It was a Fundraiser for the “Petco Foundation.” According to their website:
“In February, 1999, the PETCO Foundation was established to promote a wide variety of educational and charitable activities nationwide by partnering with approximately [...]

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Long Island, Here I Come!

                                           The LIPS Expo Link: http://www.liparrotsociety.org/parrotexpo.htm
LIPS is having me come and speak on October third at their Parrot Expo on October third. This should be interesting. This year’s theme is “Parrots, The Reality Show.” I [...]

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Pepper Turned a Corner

That’s Pepper on the right. She’s a perfectly charming African Grey. She’s eighteen years old and she came to live with Parker and me about 3 years ago. She was found by my friend Shari housed in an 18×18 inch galvanized wire cage; probably her original cage from when she was purchased as a young [...]

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“BIRD TALK” Magazine: Home of “Memo to Parker and Pepper”

(photo credit: Kent Hammit)
This is the photo used in my column in “Bird Talk” Magazine. The column, titled “Memo to Parker and Pepper” has now gone monthly according to an email from a “Parrot Nation” reader. This makes me very happy as I happen to like the “Memo” series and I also happen to like [...]

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Keeping My Pen to the Paper…(or fingers to the keyboard)

I was messing around on Facebook, trying to wrangle a couple of good ideas for “Parrot Nation” and for the Column I write for in “Bird Talk Magazine” called “Memos to Parker and Pepper”. Sometimes something as simple as someone describing what they are doing at that moment is enough for me to come up [...]

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When Are You Ever Done?

(Katherine Thorpe of the Animal Educational Foundation Training Palmer the Palm Cockatoo)
(Photo courtesy Steve Martin of NEI Inc.)

When are you done? It’s a simple question, really. When it comes to birds, I guess you aren’t ever really “done”. There is always another behavior to train, another cage to clean, another beak to feed, and another [...]

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Facebook. An Incredible Phenomenon…

I’d heard of Facebook but didn’t quite know what to think. I joined Facebook sometime in January from an invitation sent to me from a cyber friend. This cyber-friend actually has the same last name as me and had been searching for family members. Turn out we aren’t related, but decided we’d be “cousins” anyway. [...]

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