Well, my SUCCESS! ended up been a Bush's Mission Accomplished! I went to get him yesterday and came back empty handed because the lady did not have ad 20 year old female redbelly and two males, she had a 20 year old NiamNiam and a bonded pair of redbellies! She had gotten the NiamNiam from a bird flipper who told her it was a female redbelly so, when she got the other two and one looked just like a male redbelly is supposed to but the other did not get all the orange the first one had, she thought it was just the way he was when, in reality, it was not a male at all but a female with the little orangey/tan spots in her belly that they have. So, needless to say, I apologized profusely for wasting the lady's time but I told her that I refuse to split up a bonded pair. She was quite surprised to find out that they were male and female and was very gracious about my refusing to split them - she also said that, if that were the case, she might keep them together
As soon as I saw the 20 year old, I knew there was something quite not right with the 'redbelly' identification. For one thing, she was the tiniest bit too big (but I did not really think much of this because, as we all know, parrots vary in their size the same way that people do), for another, she had no orangey/tan spots on her belly -and that I found VERY curious- but, what really made me think it could have been a different species was the black 'mask' - I had never seen a redbelly with a black mask! Her orbital rings were black instead of grey as they are in the redbellies and it had a black line that went across joining them, just like a mask. So I came home and checked my Parrots of the World and sure enough! It's a NiamNiam, a species that I have never seen in person so that was a treat!
We talked about diet and she now emailed me asking me what I feed my parrots so I told her and I also told her to join this birdsite so we will see if she does. Very nice lady... an animal lover, my kind of person
