solar schedule for a long,long summer day

[Di Wu]

I know the important to follow the solar schedule for our parrot. They need to receive the sunlight at sun rise and sunset to set their bio-clock.
However, I live in Netherlands, at the middle of summer, the sun rise starts at 5:00 am and sun set starts around 10:30. So if I follow the solar schedule, my parrot get only around 6.5 hours of sleep. It's far too less for him. I know he can get some sleep in the afternoon, but will it enough for him?
He is current schedule is: after flying and playing out of cage for 2 hours, he back to cage around 7:30 Pm, eat dinner, then I close the curtain in our living room around 8:30 pm, he go directly to his favorite branch and fall into sleep. I open the curtain again between 7:30 am and 8:00 am next morning, (normally, he wakes up a little early before I open the curtain).Then he fly out of his cage, play and eat with us, after 1 hour, he fly back to his cage and eat rest of his breakfast.
I would like to get a suggestion to make a better schedule for Rico, my parrot.
(I can't let him wake up early then 6:00 am, because he then will wake up everyone in the house, and my wife will kill me for that )

[Wolf]

Living that far north makes keeping to a solar schedule nigh to impossible, as it is the twilight periods occurring at dawn and at dusk that set and reset their internal clock and not the sunlight during the rest of the day, although they do benefit from a certain amount of that as well. That, to me means that the only recourse is to use technology to attempt to duplicate these two periods of the day in order to prevent the bird from becoming overly hormonal or remaining in breeding condition all year long.
I know that you will need full spectrum lighting that is bird safe ( CRI 94+. K Temp 5000 to 5500), and timers. From this point, I am lost. Pajarita can give you more on this when she comes online and we also have members that live as far north as you do that , hopefully will see this and respond.

[Di Wu]

Thanks, wolf for your fast reply. One question, how can a full spectrum light, or UV light mimic twilight? I know a little bit about light, the full spectrum light is even far way from normal sun light. People are working to get full spectrum light close to sunlight as much as possible, but it's very difficult. I guess the twilight and normal sunlight are more close to each other then the twilight and artificial light.

[Wolf]

The full spectrum will not mimic the twilight, but living that far north you will need the full spectrum light in the darker months.

[Pajarita]

Well, I tell you, here in the NE USA, my birds wake up before 5 am during the summer and go to sleep at around 9 pm and they do just fine. They just take a longer nap at noon.

But as to how to reproduce twilight, this is what I suggest:
- get yourself two table lamps and put a low wattage red light in one and a regular one in the other and put them both on the floor (I used to put them under a table but not in the middle, more to the edge so the light would shine in an upward and oblique kind of way)
- in the morning, turn on the red light on the floor
- half an hour later (can be 20 minutes), turn on the white light, too
- half an hour later, turn off the red light and put the white light on a table
- half an hour after that, turn on the overhead full spectrum light and off the white table lamp.
- in the evening, do the same thing only backward.

It's not perfect but it's the closest I can come up with...

[Di Wu]

Ok, I will set Rico outdoor for the summer and let mother nature take care of his bio-clock. I will try the white/red light method during winter time.

[Pajarita]

No, no, you can't put a parrot all by himself out there all day long. They need company so, unless you are planning on staying out there with him, he will get all stressed out.

[Di Wu]

Don't worry, Pajarita.
My plan is to build an aviary 2m X1m X2m which can be set both indoor and outdoor. During summer, the aviary will be set outdoor. I'll go into the Aviary to play with him, and I'll also bring him indoor with a carrier at morning and evening for 1 to 2 hours, so he can fly in my living room and play with everyone in the house. Now, he already spend most of his time outdoor in his cage, but an aviary will give him more freedom.
The aviary will be moved indoor during the winter, and he will be able get out his aviary when we are home.

I also notice that when he is indoor in his cage along, he is either very quite, sitting in the cage do nothing, or constant making contact call. But when he is outdoor in his cage along, he calls much less because he is more active by playing with his toys, chewing apple branch and grape vine which I collected in my backyard. When he is in his cage indoor but he can see me, he is more active. However, when he is outdoor, there is not much a different between I am present or not. So my conclusion is that he is more comfortable and relax when he is outdoor.( my backyard is not huge and open as a typical backyard from American. It's small and surrounded by 2 to 4 m walls from our neighbors, but there are lot of green, I believe all these make him relax)

[Pajarita]

Yes, been surrounded by nature is good not only for animals but also for human beings (there have been lots of studies on this) but it's impossible for a parrot to relax when he is by himself. They are hard-wired to need constant company. It's the way they evolved to live and what makes them feel safe. Be careful with giving a Senegal only one or two hours of company a day... these birds get VERY attached to their humans and their absence usually triggers screams, bites and/or plucking.