Our Flock: Our Congo African Grey Parrot Arua

A fascinating aspect of having African grey parrots in the household is the ubiquitous background noise they provide. Unlike macaws or even cockatoos they always seem to be vocalizing. Anyone with an African grey parrot probably doesn't realize how much they enjoy the constant noise until they lose it. When our first Congo African grey parrot Corky died from heart failure in March of 2006 we faced the sudden quiet in the household, even with four macaws and a Goffin's cockatoo. We knew we wanted another Congo African grey.

Within a month we came across an unusual Craigslist posting for a female Congo African grey parrot which had lost its owner and needed to find a good new home quickly. The parrot was hiding in an apartment complex hoping the management wouldn't find out. We went to visit the parrot in its hideout, and it was love at first sight! The parrot came home with us.

Our Congo African grey parrot Arua, her first day home with us, April 2, 2006.

Arua is a confirmed female Congo African grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus). Arua is a very large grey. The average weight for an adult Congo African grey is 400 grams. On her first visit to our avian veterinarian, Arua weighed in at about 480 grams. On first seeing her, our vet called Arua a fatty!

When we acquired Arua, she was believed to be about ten years old. Her owner was a Polish fellow living in Spokane, who passed away on New Year's Eve of 2005. Apparently he was not found for three days. We believe his name may have been Oliver, because that is a name Arua frequently repeated when she came to us (she never says the name any more). A Polish lady in Everett, Washington, brought the bird back from Spokane, and that is how she came to us, via Craigslist. In her first year or so with us Arua said many words we did not understand but which we believe were Polish. It's been awhile since she's repeated any foreign words. The only reason we know Arua is her name is because she constantly and consistently calls herself by that name.

Just hanging out. Arua is one acrobatic parrot!

Arua is our one parrot that not only knows her name, but knows the name of every member of the flock in this household, parrot or human. She says: Hi Hope. It took her awhile to get Michael correct. For the longest time it was Ickle! She knows Rox or Roxanne, Bubba, Boo (Aboo), Tara, and Tillie. The only parrot whose name she refuses to say is that of our Goffin's cockatoo Kid Kadra. She does not like Kid, who harasses her given the chance, and she ignore's him.

Arua tolerating a bath. Arua does not like showers, but prefers to bathe in her water dish.

Arua is one of the friendliest Congo African grey parrots we've encountered. Although she has a slight disposition for females over males, she will readily step up with just about anyone. Since she joined our flock she has developed her flying skills. Our first Congo African grey parrot Corky flew like a lead brick, but not Arua. Arua's flight feathers were clipped when she first came to us, but we let her flight feathers grow out, and her flying skills have improved from her first noticeably labored attempts to now being a competent flier. No doubt she has been encouraged to improve her flying skills because of the aerial harassment she gets from our Goffin's cockatoo, Kid Kadra. Initially if Arua wanted to get anywhere in the house she'd climb off her cage and trudge across the floor. She still hikes around, but now she's just as inclined to fly to her desired destination as walk.

In addition to her usual African grey vocalizations, Arua has a well defined speaking voice. We no longer hear any Polish words, but she continually speaks and continues to pick up English words and phrases. Interestingly, she tends to pick up words and phrases from the male of the house, but virtually nothing from the female of the house. I taught her to say Michael correctly, and I'm trying to teach her to say Don't break the door! That was a phrase our first Congo African grey Corky favored. Just like Corky, Arua will slam her cage door closed, at which time we say Don't break the door! A couple of Arua's favorite phrases are: Whacka Whacka, and Whoop De Doo! When she wants something to eat, she'll say: Who wants a cracker? If she wants more food, she'll say: You want more? She'll let us know if the food is Hot! Arua is a hard taskmaster. If she thinks a meal is taking too long to prepare, she'll scold: Are you done yet? She's always warning us to: Watch your tail! Or Watch your toe! Since our Timneh African grey parrot Tillie joined our flock, she's constantly admonishing us to Watch our Tillie! She likes Tillie. Alot.Sometimes she threatens us by exclaiming: I'll get your tail! When we make coffee, she offers the helpful suggestion: Add more water. Of course, she farts and burbs, occasionally comes down with a bad cough, and has a sneeze so fierce it's a wonder she doesn't fall off her perch. She's often wrestling with her toys, hanging upside down and whacking her bells. We warn her to be careful or she'll fall down and go boom. Sometimes she does. Invariably, she'll pick herself up, climb back up, and go right back to it.

The Strange Case of The Barking Crow

To set the scene: We have a parrot stand out in our backyard for our Diva Parrot and Greenwing Macaw Roxanne. Actually three separate stands placed next to each other. Roxanne likes to sit out back and watch the birds and airplanes (power birds) fly overhead. Except when the Goodyear blimp sails overhead, but that's an entirely different story. Roxanne also has an admiring coven of crows that like to hang out around the yard and observe her. They typically sit on the cedar fence surrounding the backyard but generally they stay away from her stand.

A few days ago we observed a crow sitting on her stand not three feet from Roxanne, barking. We thought that was odd, so we ran to get our video recorder. Unfortunately the crow took flight as soon as we returned.

To prove this wasn't a fluke, several days later we observed the same crow sitting in the same spot, once again barking at Roxanne. We ran for the camera again. This time we were able to record the event. After about a minute, the crow flew up to the gutter on the neighbor's house, and continued barking for another minute or so.

Then the next day the same crow was back, observed doing the very same thing. Clearly this crow is trying to communicate with our Greenwing Macaw Roxanne. See for yourselves, and listen carefully:

Anyone have any ideas or conjecture just what the heck is going on? Could it be birdie love? We have a flock of crows that live in the neighborhood, and we can identify several individuals by sight. This is a new bird There is a six foot tall cedar fence surrounding our backyard, and the crows like to hang out on the fence and stare at Roxanne. They must be highly impressed. We've never before seen a crow sitting on her stand.

Roxanne has actually taught one of the crows to say Hi. We wouldn't believe it if we hadn't actually seen it. Wish we had a recording of that!

Postscript: The same crow was observed back in the same spot on Thursday, February 4, 2010, once again barking at our Greenwing macaw Roxanne. And as we type this on Saturday, February 6th, Roxanne and the same crow are out there once again. It has to be avian love!


Additional Postscript: The same crow was observed on the neighbor's roof Saturday morning, December 18th, 2010, barking for Roxanne. Unfortunately for the crow, this time of year Roxanne spends very little time out on her back play stand because of the continuing monsoon. We try to explain to Roxanne that wild crows and other birds live out in the cold and rain year around, but she's not buying it. She prefers to stay indoors.

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.

Training Your Parrot to Play With Cheap Toys

Isn't it always the case? You spend dollars and dollars on toys for your kids, and all they want to do is play with the box! With this new economy, we want to save money while keeping our kids entertained, so we're always looking for parrot safe, inexpensive and readily available toys. Our first Training Your Parrot to Play With Cheap Toys YouTube video, featuring our Timneh African Grey parrot Tillie, focused on an item we realized we shouldn't be throwing away: plastic bottle caps. This is far and away our most viewed YouTube video. So, to make this a series, we produced another YouTube video, Training Your Parrot to Play With Cheap Toys: Paper Bags. This makes the answer to the question: Paper or Plastic? simple. This new YouTube video features our Hyacinth Macaw parrot Princess Tara, and our Congo African Grey parrot, Arua:

To make it easy to view the original Training Your Parrot to Play With Cheap Toys YouTube video, we've added it here. Training Your Parrot to Play With Cheap Toys: Bottle Caps:

Since our parrots usually prefer to play with the containers rather than the contents, we produced yet another Training Your Parrot to Play With Cheap Toys YouTube video, featuring our Timneh African grey parrot Tillie: Training Your Parrot to Play With Cheap Toys: Cardboard Boxes. Our smaller parrots especially love chewing up cereal boxes and tissue boxes, although any cardboard container is popular with our flock, including toilet paper rolls. Just be sure they are not covered in glue. Inspect the material before giving it to your parrots, and if in doubt just toss it out! Something to watch out for, however, is nesting behavior. You want to be sure your parrots are playing with the boxes, and not trying to build a nest. For more about the topic of nest building, see our blog post about our female Blue and Gold macaw, Miss Bubba Boy: Our Flock: Bubba's Brood.

We're always anxious to hear about any other ideas for great, cheap, and readily available parrot toys. Got an idea? Please share it with us.

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!

Our Flock: Our Goffin's Cockatoo Kid Kadra Checks Out the Hot Tub

On a nice sunny day, a Goffin's cockatoo just wants to soak in the tub. However, finding a suitable tub can sometimes be a problem! So, our fifteen year old male Goffin's cockatoo Kid Kadra has to make due with whatever he can find.

Some hot tubs just suck!

Our Flock: Our Goffin's Cockatoo: Kid Kadra: Acrobat and Showoff!

Hatched in 1994, one of a clutch of three, Kid Kadra is a fifteen year old DNA sexed male Goffin's Cockatoo (Cacatua goffini), with the typical Too attitude! Kid Kadra was raised by his original owner, Martin Maurer, a personal friend, who considered Kid Kadra more like a service animal, carrying him on his shoulder virtually wherever he went. We once saw Martin parked at a gas station, pumping gas, with Kid Kadra sitting on his shoulder!

Kid Kadra joined our flock in 2005 under the most unfortunate circumstances, with the untimely death of his owner, who had a history of serious illness. Apparently traumatized by the sudden death of his original owner, Kid Kadra was comatose for about two weeks, barely eating, let alone moving.

Eventually Kid Kadra survived and adjusted to his new life with The Ballard Rain Forest. His Too personality slowly flowered and showed his true talents. For obvious reasons, Martin had kept Kid Kadra's wings clipped, but we allowed Kid to grow his flight feathers out. We keep all of our flock flighted. Slowly but surely Kid Kadra realized his talent for flying. Starting with short hops from cage to playstand, Kid started flying across rooms, then around rooms, then from room to room. Eventually he discoved this rain forest has a basement, so he even started flying from floor to floor!

Kid Kadra showing off for our Greenwing Macaw and Diva parrot Roxanne!

Kid Kadra chose our first Congo African grey parrot Corky to focus his attention on, and quickly became Corky's nemesis. Corky flew like a lead balloon, so was forced to chase Kid Kadra around on the floor. Kid would simply hop out of Corky's way, surely aggravating him! As his flying skills improved, Kid Kadra turned his attention to the macaws, not in the least scared off by their size. For whatever reason, Kid became infatuated with our Greenwing macaw Roxanne, but he found the tails of the other macaws irresistible. Kid Kadra harasses our male Blue and Gold macaw Aboo to no end, but wisely avoids our Alpha parrot, Miss Bubba Boy.

Kid Kadra loves to fly, and is a true acrobat. Kid can fly circles around our other parrots, and knows that he can. Therefore, he does! As mentioned above, he flies from floor to floor. Only our newest parrot, our Timneh African grey Tillie, does that as well. Kid also flies for the sake of flying. Kid will jump off the top of perches, dive to the floor, and do barrel rolls. Kid will wait for us to walk across the floor, so he can dive bomb us and brush the top of our heads with his feet. And if one of the other parrots takes flight, Kid will fly down and chase the other bird.

Kid Kadra loves to bathe, sitting on the shower rail and getting misted with a spray bottle. Kid loves to come into the bathroom when we shower, and begs us for baths, and would probably take a bath every day given the chance. If all else fails, on a hot summer day, Kid will sit in the water dish with his wings draped over the sides.