"Chiffon"                "Hombre & Skeeter" Skeeter was a handfed Macaw that we bought and was surprised at the difference in temperament between him and Hombre.  Skeeter was much more skittish and high strung with a tendency to scream more and a lot more unpredictable about biting.  I sometimes think that hand fed birds are not trained as well as wild birds are and have a tendency to bite more freely.  Although I have been bitten many times by wild birds while training them I think the worst has been by tame ones while I was not expecting it.  The size of some of their beaks can do a lot of damage if they want to really bite hard, but I have found that a bird bites most often when it is scared, when it is being thwarted from doing something such as eating or can be a little dangerous if they see you as their mate and someone else comes into their territory.  We had a Mitered conure that loved Dick and thought that he belonged to him and would not let me even sit on the couch while Dick was sitting there if he was sitting by him.  Nutty little character, but cute.   This beautiful bird is Flame a green wing macaw who loved to be loved and cuddled but did not like to be put down and if he did not want to get down he would nip you and sometimes a little harder than is necessary.  He nipped me on the chin one day and it hurt my feelings worse than my chin. This is me with Hombre on my shoulder and Skeeter on my arm.  They were great friends and loved attention if it wasn't during their feeding period.   This little guys name is CT for carrot top.  He is a half moon conure and does not really like a lot of handling for some reason.  Some birds are just like people I guess just leave them alone and they do just fine.  Not wild just not too fond of attention. This is Benji and "wifey".  Benji is on the left and "wifey" is on the right.  They are ring-neck parakeets.  They are great little birds but not as easy to train as some of the other birds in my experience.  Some may disagree with this but I have found that some of the parakeet family is very independent and unless you keep their wings clipped ,which I would advise if they are to be out of a cage, they are hard to tame.  They are great fliers and it can be dangerous for them to let them fly in the house if you have mirrors or anything that can reflect their images.  They will fly right into them.  Of course this is true of any bird that can fly well.   Dandy a Lutino Cockatiel and Andy a beautiful blue and yellow pied parakeet were not some that I raised but a couple of birds that I bought after moving to Moses Lake were such cuties but were not nearly as tame as the ones that I raised and worked with earlier.  They co-existed with us but not in a very friendly manner.  But I loved them dearly. This beautiful Cockatiel is a Lutino and had the most beautiful crest I have ever seen on a Cockatiel.  He was one that I hand fed.  His father is Skipper and his mother was a beautiful pearl Cocktiel.  They had beautiful babies but were not great parents.  They fed them well but I had to remove them after about three weeks because they literally kept the feathers plucked right out of them.  I tried everything from increasing their minerals and vitamins to giving them new toys to chew on but to no avail.  But I raised some great babies by handfeeding them. This picture is pretty dark but maybe you can see what a little female redrump parakeet looks like.  they are a darling little bird.  This one was bought for breeding purposes and was not named nor was her mate in the next picture.  Their breeding environment needs to be quite large and preferably airy.  We tried to breed them in an enclosed area and they just didn't want to cooperate and we sold them to a garden center as a display and the little stinkers when right to work and bred and raised young.  The environment was just right for them there and although there were people around all the time it did not seem to bother them which usually will with most birds.  Never can tell about birds... This beautifully colored bird is the male redrump parakeet the other bird is the female in the photo above.  This is one of the most colorful little birds that I have seen.  They look like they are in the rosella family but are not.  I have always wanted to see a number of rosellas but have not come into contact with them.  Some birds are quite rare and are becoming more rare all the time such as the Hyacinth Macaw, the big black Cockatoo, and if some of the dread diseases keep running rampant in the other cockatoos in the wild and breeding aviaries such as the beak and feather disease we will lose more of them.   These are called Nandy Conures and although usually prolific breeders and be quite noisy.  When you have a lot of birds this really can add to the noise and confusion but they are adorable little birds.   This is "Taco" and "Toro" both Mexican Red head Amazons.  They are not considered to be among the great talkers of the amazon family but they are certainly one of the best pets.  Very friendly and lovable.  They were just so cute. and shared their perch quite willingly with another special little bird we called pepper who I know knew exactly what you were talking about.  He used to get down off his perch and wander around if we would let him.  When I caught him doing this I said, "Pepper you get back up on your perch, now" and he turned immediately and went right back and he would top after going up a couple of rungs and I would say, "go on, clear to the top"  and he would go on up.  You will never convince me that animals do not understand what is being said to them and birds are some of the most intelligent of all.  When you live with them you learn so much about them that is just amazing.  We had a beautiful greenwing macaw that we have on video but I have no stills of him.  He loved to bath in the sink and drink root beer out of a can.  He would come up to us and roll over on his back so that his tummy could be scratched.  He talked and although he could be verbal about a lot of things he was not noisy or sqwaky, I think that the greatest draw back with birds is that your house can look like a feather factory each morning before vacuuming and the seed gets scattered pretty bad.  But it is all worth it.   This is the little "intelligent guy" I was talking about above.  His name is pepper and he is a mitred conure.  The red extends in small patches further back on his head as well as on the forehead but can not be seen in this photo.  I wish we had gotten more picture of him because he really is a beautiful bird. This is what I call sharing.  Chico the peach face is sharing his exercise gym with Tinkerbell and dynamite the little olive colored parakeet.  Tinker and dynamite were great friends and always together when both were out of their cages. Nipper is not too happy about sharing her area with Tobird but both seem to tolerate it.  I think Nipper just wanted to sleep and did not quite trust Tobird while doing so.   Tobird sharing my grapes.  Nearly all the large birds were willing to take food from my mouth although it took a while for them to get used to the idea.  I think it is less threatening than hands to them.  So many times birds have been mishandled while being trained that they develop a real fear of the hands and will accept an arm much quicker than the fingers.  Also I found that they like to go to the highest point on your body which is usually your head or shoulder.  This however is not a great idea to let them get too used to this because they are harder to manage this way.  Chiffon never did get to comfortable sitting on my arm or hand.  She loved to sit on my shoulder and have her head preened, especially when she was molting because the feather shafts would get a little hard at times and would itch so it helped to clear them off at this time.  She loved this.   Nipper and Skipper chewing on my centerpiece.  They loved to chew on this for some reason.  Good thing it was not live.   Sharing my grapes with Skeeter.  I am sure it is Skeeter because he is a little smaller than Hombre and sits higher up on his legs.  He is also more narrow through the chest. I have a whole album with picture of my precious angels but alas do not have any of my breeding budgies, finches, canaries, love birds or one pair of breeder Cockatiels.  I have one picture of Pearl, Skippers mate, but because it did not show her in all her glory I chose not to add it.