Visiting the Oasis Parrot Sanctuary

[jeangaut]

I'll try to chip in when I can...my own flock is made up of 13 birds. I have my three Jardine's (Aukie, Emma and Giggidy) and then my little Meyer's hen, Molly. Mona would be horrified if I did not mention my MOLLY, lol! She is really an incredible flier and a great little girl, just as cool as a Senegal. I do have issues with her being aggressive to my other birds, but she's great with people and I used to fly her at the armory with Mona's birds. Mona really really misses her. She is now 11 years old and was my first parrot, so I've had her 8 years.

My three Congo greys are Sylvain, Nigel and my new girl, Trixie. And all are so different! I swear, every grey I know is so totally unique in personality...even more so than other species. In the video you can see me take Nigel off a perch in the grey aviary and give him a kiss (which I always do through my hand, because now and then he'll try to bite rather than kiss, but he EXPECTS a greeting kiss from me!). Other than Nigel, all my own birds live at my house. Mona knows Nigel well too...he went from a plucked baby to a beautifully flighted 5 year old interacting with the Oasis greys and learning flock dynamics in that big aviary. Not a bad life!

I am also very big on Eclectus parrots, I have three in my flock (Donald, Pilot and Veronica). I used to fly Donald at the Armory in Washington state with the Northwest Avian Flyers too. I am active on The Eclectus Connection email list as the 'plant expert' who offers help identifying safe and toxic plants for parrots...I have a master's in horticulture. At the Oasis, I spent the past year caring for an Eclectus named Pong Yo who was a victim of multiple strokes. He and I became very close, and we just lost him in early December...one of the harder things that has happened to me since working here. I am working on building a memorial bird fruit garden for the Oasis parrots in his honor.

And the rest of my flock is rounded out by my Lesser Patagonian Conure, Lenny; my Aztec Conure, Chicken and my Iris Lorikeet, Vic. I am just a huge fan of so many species though. Both conures and lories have great qualities as companions too, it's too bad so often you just hear about how noisy conures are and how messy lories are!!! Mine aren't so bad, certainly not so bad that I wouldn't want to live with them and enjoy them forever! I adore my two conures, recently took Chicken to a positive reinforcement training retreat at Cockatoo Downs, and he's still working on his step up but making progress...which is huge since he's always been handshy.

Vic's brother can be seen in a number of videos posted by his owner Cydney on YouTube. Thought I'd share a link to a few of them, but once again, lories are very underrated as companion birds. They just are difficult to keep with other parrot species because they can be more aggressive and dangerous to similar sized birds. But what personality and smarts! Okay, I'll post the Rainbow Lory smilie, though he's not the kind I have.. Iris and Goldie's Lorikeets are not much bigger than budgies, but every bit a lory like Ophelia the Black Lory is!! They are messier, but since they are small you can make the mess manageable with shower curtains and frequent cage cleaning.

Here's some of Cydney's links with her trained Iris lorikeet, Kia...cute or what!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMoxr0vI-Wc
http://www.youtube.com/user/cydney1220# ... NhrFra3nBo

[Giantmoa]

wow, what a fantastic place- I'd love to volunteer there. Where I currently volunteer there are only two parrots- an amazon who hates my guts (I still adore her though, she's a lot of fun to interact with ) and a plucked macaw who is staff only. I can't really imagine so many birds all in one place

[Mona]

I do miss Molly and Nigel, but I don't think that Babylon and Molly would EVER get along in a small room together....Two little prima donnas!

They did fly in the fly building fine though. That was a large space and since both Jean and I were there with our respective "girls", they didn't need to compete for attention.

By the way, Babylon LOVES Jean's long hair. It just sets my little Senegal off. I also played Michael's movie for the birds to see if they reacted to it. Phinney was absolutely mesmerized!

Glad to hear from you Jean and fun seeing you online!

[idlepirate]

Wow that's alot of parrots and alot of cleaning to keep up with hehe. Excellent video, I love to see places like that and what a great heart to everyone that runs it. If I went there though I would have a hard time leaving, I can spend hours in a petshop around 2-3 parrots, I can only imagine a sanctuary like that...

[jeangaut]

Mona, I have to say Molly has gotten more possessive of her territory and me over the last five years, and less tolerant of other parrots at my house. Back when I birdsat Ranzo (male Red Bellied) for 6 months in 2005, she could care less that I had him in the house...they could both be out on playgyms together and she'd totally ignore him. But when I started birdsitting for Sonja somewhat regularly in 2007, I noticed she changed...she became a lot less tolerant of me having Halo (female Meyer's) and Henry (male Red Bellied) there. And then when I tried fostering Tooey in 2008 (male Senegal), she became downright aggressive and dangerous towards a new poi in the house, saw him, flew into his cage and pinned him to the grate, ready to kill. Not cool...the end of me birdsitting parrots her size or smaller at my house. She also used to ignore my larger parrots other than Aukie, and now she will even attack Donald (male Eclectus) if she is out with him in my bedroom, or ANY of the other birds through their cages. So I have to be a lot more cautious, especially I'd never let my little Aztec Conure Chicken and her out at the same time because he'd be toast. I think when she's NOT at home with me, this behavior is far less prevalent, so I think going to say a fly building with her and other birds would probably be fine.

But I do not see her now ever adapting to living with a group of pois in her home territory! She and Babs are two queen bees, and they are serious about it!!!!

[Mona]

Hi Jean:

That's interesting.....It really makes me wonder why it works with Babylon, Jack and Bailey???

They do interact, but nothing too serious. I am letting them all out in the bird room together now for an hour daily. Kiri and Phinney are with them...so, it's the whole flock. Some days, Babylon screams and when I open the door she flies out so she can follow me around. She follows me around for about 20 minutes until she gets bored with me and then I can put her back in the bird room with the others...but some days, she hangs with the other birds for the entire hour and she is sweet as pie....Wonder why...What do you think? You know my boys....

Mona