A new reference letter

I HAVE MET THE BIRD WHISPERER!

It was a huge decision to have some of our birds re-homed but life changes, work and other commitments meant it was no longer possible to give four birds the attention they needed and deserved. They all need a lot of attention and especially Teaka as he was quite literally a ‘one man bird’.

 Teaka is a Sever Macaw who has a great sense of humour and could be a real fun bird but he had bonded very closely with Mike and was quite aggressive towards anyone else. This meant that only Mike was able to feed and handle him.

Cherry is a Red Lory. A great little bird, very friendly towards everyone and loves to play all day with toys or anything he can get his beak into! Lory’s are nectar eaters and Cherry had always been hand fed so this had created a huge commitment to hand feed him twice a day and also a lot of mess in the kitchen while he was being fed!

 ‘Little Guy’ is a Cockatiel. Not strictly our bird as someone had found him outside and knowing Mike had birds bought him to the house to be taken care of.

 We found out about  parrotadoptontario.com  and emailed Nancy and made arrangements to go and visit the bird sanctuary and see what they do before we made a decision about the birds futures.

We arrived at Nancy and Brett’s house and were welcomed into their and the birds home! One thing we noticed right away was the calmness even though there were birds in the house! Every bird, without exception, even the ones Nancy told us were new to their home, looked happy and were calm and showed no signs of stress or nervousness. Indeed two of them quickly made it clear they could better check us out if they were on our shoulders!

 After a good visit we went home and discussed it all and made the choice for the birds to go to Nancy and Brett for rehabilitation.

 I am still amazed at the outcome!

 Nancy, Brett and their daughter arrived at the house and Brett went direct to the bird’s room and let Tika out! I had though this would result in complete chaos and anarchy but……… nothing! Tika came out of his house and calmly walked to the perch across the windows where Brett spent a few minutes talking to him and Tika was calm! Absolute silence and no stress. I have heard of the Horse Whisperer and here was the Bird Whisperer! Brett asked if Tika was used to being on someone’s shoulders and I said that he had been on Mike just that morning, he just said ‘Tika up’ and there was Tika on his shoulder, no biting, no screeching and calm. We bought the carrier into the room and Tika went towards it to check it out and Brett just said ‘Tika in’ and in he went. This was truly amazing! Even a couple of weeks after the evening I still find this so hard to believe and know that this kind of experience is only possible because Nancy and Brett are so experienced and the birds sense who is going to be kind and who presents no threat to them.

 Nancy and Brett’s daughter had, while all this was going on just made friends with Cherry who was also just put into a carrier without any fuss or stress,

 Within half an hour the birds had gone to their new home without any fuss, stress or problem.

Buzz (our African Grey) has stayed with us and even though Nancy warned he may do a little stress feather plucking with the change in the household and without his friends, he only had a couple of tentative pulls at his chest. He was in the room the whole time the other guys were moved and I think the calmness of Tika and Cherry leaving meant that his stress too was kept to a minimum.

 We cannot thank Nancy and Brett enough for their advice, calmness and professionalism in this difficult life change for the birds and for us and for anyone who is facing a similar choice we would have no hesitation in sending them to Nancy and Brett for help and advice.

Mike & Allie