This is Buddy, a Red Lored Amazon parrot. He needed a new home and I was happy to give him one. His original name is Baby, so we are transitioning to something similar, but not so silly. He doesn't seem to mind.
Until I can take him to the vet to be sexed, we don't know if he's a male or a female, either. I'll try not to freak him out with too many changes for now, though!
As Amazon parrots go, he's the 3/4 size, as opposed to the full-sized Double Yellow-heads or Yellow-Naped Amazons. That makes him a perfect size for a little house like mine!
His former owner got him from her aunt, who, at 84, began to have troubles caring for him. Someone else gave Buddy to the aunt, so poor Buddy has has four owners in four years. Well, the bird stops here, so to speak. He'll be staying with me for a long, long time. If all goes well, I'll have to put him in my will, as he'll outlive me.
With all the changes in situation, Buddy, so I've been told, will bite. He wouldn't bite his former owner, but he bit the heck out of the kids and anyone else who tried to handle him. However I think a lot of it had to do with ignorance of bird nature, and proper bird handling. I am taking things slowly, but he seems to like me a lot. He comes right over to the edge of the cage, he takes treats from me and hasn't tried to bite at all. I was told by the former owner that I had better put a glove on if I put my hand in the cage because he'd "bite the heck out of you" but I'm not seeing that kind of behaviour. We'll see. I'll use caution but I suspect he's a lot more relaxed here than he was in his previous home.
He's so quiet for a parrot! I love the way he chitter chatters quietly to himself. He gets very excited about music, vacuum cleaners, and other noises, and of course he loves to be talked to, but he doesn't just scream for the fun of it. Not at all!
He does a great chicken cluck: buck buck buck BUck KAW!! He wolf whistles, has asked me "How are ya?" He's called me "Mommy," and I'm working on teaching him Hi and Hello. He has quite a few indistinct words and sounds. We may never know what some of them are.
I spent a hilarious fifteen minutes meowing at him, only to have him chicken cluck every single time I meowed. "Meow?" "Buck buck buck BuckKAW!" "Meow?" "buck buck buck....." "Meow?" "Buck buck....buck.....buck kaw?" Yes, he can cluck like a chicken asking a question.
At first I wondered if I would be able to sleep once he got here, because right now we have no night. It's light 24 hours a day. But he's a good little bird: he goes to sleep with the rest of us just fine, and he doesn't get up until we do, either. In fact, he's very quiet unless I'm doing something to get him going. It's pretty wonderful!
Of course Sofia wanted to eat him right away. She went into full coyote-slink mode, with that zoned look, all body parts slunk down. She hid under the table the cage is on, as if I wouldn't notice!
Ole thinks the bird is fascinating, especially because Buddy drops FOOD out of the cage! I won't need to do any clean-up in that regard because I have my own Elkhound Cleaning System. He thinks the bird is interesting, but the bird dropping food is AMAZING. Buddy is by the edge of the railing, and he dropped a peanut down to the first floor and Ole thought "OMG Peanuts falling from the sky!"
Sofia has chilled out and is listening really well. She's over her Intruder Alert and knows that Buddy is off-limits. It's only the third Bird Day, so we are doing very well here!
I feel sorry for Buddy, that he's only four and yet has had four homes. He has a band on his leg, but his former owner didn't know what was on it. I suspect he was a hand-fed baby guy, and has just gotten jaded over the years. I'm really happy to have him and want to thank the Alaska Bird Club for letting me adopt him, and thank his former owner, as well, for knowing it was time to find him a safer place. I know it must have been hard to let go of him, but she did the right thing, and I thank her!