A Bird of the Air: Cosmo the Wild-Caught Timneh African Grey Parrot

My name is Cosmo. I am a Timneh African Grey parrot. I was wild caught, just a chick, and transported, stuffed in a box, half way around the world. I survived that ordeal. My current owners think I am about 30 years of age. My original owners had me for at least 10 years, perhaps 15. After they died their children thought I was a wonderful pet and opted to keep me. Unfortunately, they knew nothing about parrots or parrot care. I was shuffled from one family member to another. Eventually I ended up with my current owners.

For reasons I can’t explain I hate males. No doubt it was a male that tore me out of my nest. But I love females and will behave for them. When I jumped on my current owner's husband’s foot and started to bite his toes, my owner said “Cosmo that is not nice” so I got off, hung my head and walked back to my cage. They remained committed to their resolve to keep me as long as the wife was the one to hold and love me, feed me and clean my cage. I was happy and so were they. I fell in love with their daughter and her two daughters. They asked if they could have me, and I was happy with them for several years. About two years ago, my owner’s husband became disabled, and it is a serious disability, so while my owner was at work he could no longer care for me during the day. I am now mad at my owner because she must care for her husband, two daughters and of course me. Sadly, I am the last on the list. My owner asked if she would try to find me a new home. This is the last thing any of them want to do. However, they all feel I deserve a home where I can get the love and attention they feel I deserve.

I need to be in a male free home, with someone who will have the time to let me adjust to the new home and give me lots of love and attention. I like to get out and roam around, which this family has allowed, even when I misbehaved. My current owners said that they want to be sure that I go to the kind of home where I will get the patience, love and attention I deserve. If you think you are the one who can give me what I need please contact Northwest Parrots Fund. I talk a lot and can be quite loud. But I do not swear or curse, which is one of the rules my current owners insist be in place at my new home.

Postscript: We are pleased to report that Cosmo has found a new home with a lovely lady who lives with a flock of parrots, including a Congo African grey. Cosmo couldn't be happier!

How to Catch a Parrot

How to Catch a Parrot. In Three Easy Steps:

Take One Box

Add Bait

Introduce Parrot

Piece of Cake!

No Timneh African Grey parrots named Tillie were injured in the filming of this demonstration.

There Was An Old Lady Who Lived In a Shoe

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. 

She had so many children, she didn't know what to do; 

She gave them some broth without any bread.

Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

Eighteenth Century English Nursery Rhyme

Who You Calling An Old Lady?

Twenty-first Century Timneh African Grey Parrot Tillie

Our Timneh African Grey Parrot Tillie: Study of a Parrot in Motion

Our female Timneh African Grey Parrot Tillie

Photos by Allyson Photography of Seattle

We Nailed Cute

We Nailed Cute!

Or we should say: Our female Timneh African grey parrot Tillie nailed cute! Now fourteen years old, Tillie is in her second home. We suspect that much of this getting into things behavior of hers is nesting behavior. Tillie clearly prefers the male gender, and almost immediately bonded with the male member of the household. We try to be careful to not encourage her. We went through two episodes of egg laying with our female Blue and Gold macaw. Obviously this wouldn't be as much of a problem with a demure little Timneh African grey parrot. But still, we'd rather not.

Tillie loves getting into things.

Boxes. Shoes. It doesn't matter.

Feeding Parrots: Making Toast Française

Are your parrots tired of eating Chop and Mash day in and day out? Make them some real food! Toast Française for example is pathetically easy to make. And your kitchen smells so good after you fry up a batch you won't want to leave the room.


Making Toast Française

(Irresistible to Parrots)

Surprisingly few ingredients are required to make Toast Française. Basically: bread, milk, egg, cinnamon, and whatever you want to use for coating the toast. Crushed pellets, chopped nuts, and cereal come to mind. Our parrots love organic Peanut Butter Panda Puffs! Our parrots are also partial to vanilla soy milk.


1 slice of bread, toasted
1 Teaspoon milk
1 Egg
1/8 Cup Crushed topping
Dash cinnamon


We cook up two slices of toast per meal for our eight parrots, so we double the ingredients, except for the egg.

Our female Timneh African grey parrot Tillie supervising production of one of her favorite dishes. Got to keep an eye on that yolk.

Seriously beat the egg and milk together for about 30 seconds. Really fluff it up! Stir in the crushed pellets, nuts, cereal, or whatever you wish to use, to coat the toast.

Dip the toasted bread in the egg and milk mix. Your parrot will definitely want to supervise this step!

Fry the toast up in a Stainless Steel pan with cooking spray or a touch of vegetable oil. We like olive oil. Let cool, obviously. It's so good you might just want to make some extra for yourself.

Cut up to desired size.

Serve.

Beak Appetit!

Toast Française  is a favorite with parrots large and small. Our foster Ruby macaw Mr. Cracker can't dive into his food dish fast enough to savor his Toast Française!

Bathing Your Parrots

Our female Congo African grey parrot Arua loves to bathe in her water dish. Taking a shower? Not so much.

Some parrots love to bathe. Some parrots would rather not. Bathing is an essential part of feather care and maintenance. Most parrots and other birds naturally take to the water to bathe. Just try keeping your outside bird bath full during those hot summer days! Some parrots are highly particularly about how they bathe. Other parrots are not. Be thankful if you have a parrot that belongs to the latter category. If the former category, just keep plenty of towels and wipes handy. It's another problem entirely if you have a parrot that refuses to bathe. Then you'll need to experiment with different solutions to try to encourage the parrot to dip its toes in the water.

Of our eight parrots, four of our five macaws love to take showers with us, perched on our hands and arms in the bathtub. Our foster Ruby macaw Mr. Cracker probably would as well, if we could get him to step up. Instead, he prefers to bathe in his water dish. Somewhat modest, he doesn't like people watching him bathe, so if we're in the room when he wants to take a bath, he'll politely pipe up with a Bye, Bye, until we get the message, and leave the room.


Our male Goffin's cockatoo Kid Kadra loves to bathe and would probably take a bath daily if we were up to it. His preference is a spray bottle on the shower rail in the bathroom. Barring that, he'll sit on the shower rail and bathe in the spray of the macaws taking showers.

As our male Goffin's cockatoo Kid Kadra demonstrates, sometimes a bath just needs the right soundtrack! If a shower is not in the offing, maybe a parrot just needs to settle for a soak in the nearest tub, or water dish, especially on those hot summer days:

Our female Timneh African grey parrot Tillie will tolerate a spray bottle on the shower rail. Usually she'd rather not. On those occasions that Tillie will take a bath, she can get quite animated:

On those rare occasions when Tillie really really wants to bathe, no parrot enjoys a bath as much as she does!

For sheer entertainment value, we can't beat our female Congo African grey parrot Arua. Arua loves to bathe. But in her water dish, not the shower. She's very large for an African grey. Our avian vet Tracy Bennett called her fat the very first time she met Arua, but that's another story entirely. Plus, her water dish is very small. A Number 1 Fenix crock. That's a lot of parrot in a confined space. Much water displacement:

We've tried putting out large water dishes and trays for her to bathe in. She ignores them. So now, when she jumps into her water dish, we just lay out the towels along the side of her cage.


If you have a parrot resistant to taking a bathe, two things you can try. If you can take a cage outside on the porch or in the yard on a warm day, let a hose spray across part of the cage, but leave room for the parrot to retreat to if the bird doesn't want to get wet, or wants to get out of the water. If you're not able to take the parrot outside, get a parrot perch for your shower, and let the shower flow over part of the perch so the parrot can choose to take a dip or not. Just keep trying different methods until you find one that works for your parrot.


Of course, some of our parrots will tell you that the best part of any shower is the blow dry following the shower!

Our male Blue and Gold macaw Aboo is a cowboy when it comes to taking baths. He'd rather not, until he becomes so gamey even he can't stand it. But the blow dry? Just loves it!

Happy Bathing!

Our First Thousand Views YouTube Videos

We know we're not Susan Boyle, so it's exciting to us when our YouTube videos hit the thousand views mark. Two of our YouTube videos have gone over one thousand views. The first was the first video we produced with our newly acquired Timneh African Grey parrot Tillie, Training Your Parrot To Play With Cheap Toys: Bottle Caps:

Our second YouTube video to surpass one thousand views was our Training Your Parrot: Handling Macaw Beaks video produced in High Definition, featuring two of our macaws, our male Blue and Gold macaw Aboo, and our Hyacinth macaw Princess Tara:

If you like our YouTube videos, be sure to subscribe and automatically receive each new video as soon as it is uploaded.

Our Flock: Our Timneh African Grey Parrot Tillie: Just Hanging Out

Sometimes, the world is just better viewed upside down! Why stand on your feet? When you can just as comfortably hang upside down!

Our eleven year old female Timneh African Grey parrot Tillie, just likes to hang off the bottom of her cage, especially when we're cleaning the cage and that darn tray is out of the way. Maybe it's that parrot yoga thing!

Now For A Word From Our Sponsor

Our spokesparrot and Timneh African Grey Tillie wants to say a few words on behalf of our sponsor, The International Parrot Wranglers Association and Parrot Wranglers Academy:

Feeding Parrots: Sunday Dinner

With our latest Feeding Parrots YouTube video, Feeding Parrots: Sunday Dinner, we officially have a series, to complement our Training Your Parrots, and Parrots Day Out At The Ballard Farmers Market series. If you like our YouTube videos, please subscribe, and you'll receive them automatically as they are posted on YouTube!

Our Flock: Our Newest Adoption: Tillie, the Timneh African Grey Parrot

We just recently adopted an eleven year old presumed female (we're still waiting on the DNA test results) Timneh African grey parrot, Tillie, weighing in at a whopping 290 grams! She's barely half the size of our Congo African grey parrot Arua! In spite of having only one previous owner, she's already opening up, flying to me, asking for skritches on her head, and even letting me flip her upside down in my hand!

And now in High Definition (best viewed with an MP4 player):