Upside Down Parrot

Apparently our Hyacinth macaw Princess Tara was a bat in a previous life. In her current life she seems to spend a considerable amount of time hanging upside down! Usually by one foot, with the other foot grasping her flight feathers. We would love to know if anyone else has a Hyacinth macaw that engages in this kind of behavior.

As evident from the video and photos, Princess Tara's bat routine is not limited to any one spot in the house. She hangs from rings. She hangs from beneath play stands.

She hangs from the ceiling. It's a bird! It's a plane! It's. . . It's. . . No wait. It is a bird!

Downton Arby's

Can't get enought of Downton Abby? From the people who brought you Pizza Hut and Prejudice comes a new blockbuster and the latest in Emmy Award bait:

Downton Arby's is actually much funnier than Downton Abby. After hearing all the raves, particularly on NPR, we broke down and caught the last four episodes of this past season. We're still not sure what all the hype was about. Downton Abby doesn't hold a candle to J.R. and the rest of the Ewing clan on the great 1980s potboiler Dallas, for example.

Have a Nice Day

We're all in favor of Nuclear Energy. We favor using that nuclear power plant that's up there in the sky.

We also heard there was a huge air spill at a wind farm recently. Fortunately the air quickly dispersed to acceptable levels and some people even claimed to enjoy the breeze!

Sure beats this:

Prince William Sound 1989

Or this:

Gulf Coast 2010

Parrots Are Loud

People get parrots for all the wrong reasons. People dump parrots on rescues and sanctuaries for a couple of simple reasons: Lack of Time. Noise. People don't appreciate that parrots evolved to be able to communicate through miles of rain forest. The walls of a house are hardly able to contain the decibel levels that parrots can produce.

Macaw parrots can typically vocalize above 100 decibels, as demonstrated by our Blue and Gold macaws, Miss Bubba Boy and Big Boy Aboo. Moluccan Cockatoo parrots can produce noise up to 135 decibels. For perspective, keep in mind that the typical jet engine operates at roughly 140 decibels! If you want a parrot you will have to deal with noise. Your neighbors will have to deal with the noise as well. Today. Tomorrow. The day after. Day after day after day. Still want a parrot? Don't say you weren't warned.

Our Flock: Our Goffin's Cockatoo Kid Kadra

Our male Goffin's Cockatoo Kid Kadra craves attention. If he can't get it from the humans, he solicits attention from the other parrots, usually with unsatisfactory results:

Kid Kadra could easily be mistaken for one of the Three Stooges, we're guessing Larry. Here's an earlier video of Kid Kadra trying to turn a very small water dish into a tub:

Tour of Prince William Sound Twenty-three Years Ago

This newspaper column in the now defunct Anchorage Times, written by the great Alaska nature writer Bill Sherwonit, describes a tour of Prince William Sound, Alaska, following the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster March 24, 1989. Bill Sherwonit accompanied the Sierra Club's Alaska field representative Jack Hession, Anchorage wildlife photographer Myron Rosenberg, and myself, on Anchorage fisherman Rusty Hood's fishing boat, as we tried to make sense of the unfolding environmental disaster to figure out a way for conservationists in Alaska and elsewhere to respond. This column is as fresh, interesting, and relevant today as it was twenty-three years ago. I went along for the ride, because at the time I was the volunteer chairman of the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club. Within hours of the oil spill, the phones in the Sierra Club's offices in Anchorage literally melted down from the volume of calls, with people from around the world calling to volunteer to help with the oil spill response.

Click on images to enlarge

March 24, 1989