Welcome to Kalden's Parrot Flock in Tropical Singapore

Tara chilling out at her rope swing.

Tara with her pied Lovebird friend, lovey.

Tara, the Jenday Conure

Jenday (or Jandaya) conure is very much like a Sun Conure in appearance and often overshadowed by the Sun (Conure). Instead of the yellow-orange wings the Sun Conure has, the Jenday has wings of various shades of emerald green! So for those who like more green on a parrot to balance out the flashy yellow, red and orange in a Conure, Jenday is the answer!

I got my Jenday Conure from Avifauna, a bird farm in Singapore, 2003. That makes her around 3 years old now. My sis and I collectively agreed that it’s a she through perceiving her gentle demur and named her Tara.

Tara is a pretty comical and energetic girl. She likes to ride on our shoulders and play with our hair, ears, ear rings, etc and like to give kisses on the noses and lips. She’s also quite an escape artiste. Occasionally when I overslept in the morning, she’ll open the cage herself; climb over and out of the cage cover and fly into my room and clamber onto me. Then she’ll either vocalize to wake me up or play with my blanket or mattress. Sometimes, she’ll imagine the bed sheets as an enemy and screech and complain and attack the sheets. Other funny moments include her puffing all her feathers in a puff ball and swaying slowly as if she’s doing Tai Chi!

There are also affectionate and heart warming moments…

Conures, though generally not known to be good talkers; there are some who do occasionally talk. Their mimic of human voice is not as clear as, say the African grey, but it is still identifiable by us, their human flock. The first time Tara spoke was when she’s on my shoulder, leaning and cuddling against my neck…and suddenly, she says, “Tara” in a cooing voice. What a pleasant and touching surprise! Since then, we have observed her saying “no”, “kiss” and “yes” and mumbling “Tara” to herself occasionally.

If we spend time getting to know our companion parrots, caring and loving them, we never know what wonderful aspects of their world they can offer and show us!

Video Clips

Tara dancing, as requested by my neighbour's daughter. Accompanied (more as in distracted) with her feathered lovebird friend, Lovey: Movie: Tara dancing prompted by girl.wmv (1,034 KB)

Tara saying her own name: Movie: Tara saying her own name.wmv (311 KB)

Tara saying "Tara hao" (meaning "Tara's great" in chinese; Yes! She's bilingual!): Movie: Tara saying tara hao.wmv (666 KB)

Tara saying step up: Movie: Tara saying step up.wmv (95 KB)

Tara saying "kiss": Movie: Tara saying kiss.wmv (73 KB)

Tara doing Tai Chi: Movie: Tara doing Tai Chi.wmv (621 KB)

Bodhi flaring up in the limelight.

Bodhi Robert, the Blue Fronted Amazon

Bodhi's story, compared to Tara's and Manju's, is a decidedly more sober one.

Bodhi came to me as a feather chewing and vicious 5 year old biter. According to the owner, this Amazon is first bought from a local private breeder to a person who is unable to find the time for this baby and returned Bodhi to the breeder. The owner bought this bird as a one year old and kept him for four years till the present. Increasingly as Bodhi matures, his fiery Amazona hormonal temperament starts exerting itself and poorly equipped on how to deal with such a situation, his owner and family, becoming afraid of his bloodletting bites and unpredictable moods left him bound to his parrot stand; untouchable.

 The feather chewing starts after his owner decided to give up on parrots altogether, selling away his other Timneh grey, who is Bodhi’s only parrot companion in the household. Somehow, Bodhi must have sensed something because the departure of the grey triggered Bodhi into feather plucking and chewing. I adopted Bodhi, becoming his third care giver and named him “Bodhi”, a Buddhist Sanskrit term meaning “Enlightenment”. Robert is later added to his name because we realized he love this name and keep repeating “robert” to himself although neither the previous owner nor I have ever exposed this name to him.

Bodhi’s welcome for me the first night he arrived was a few deep bleeding cuts and bruises on my fingers and hands. Honestly, it does cause some fear and anxiety in me. Thanks to a friend who is experienced in avian behaviour and training, a single session with my avian behaviourist friend help transforms both Bodhi and my perception and understanding of each other. Although there are ups and downs, where one mini step forward is sometimes followed by several steps backwards on this journey of confidence and trust building, I’m heartened and glad to say it can still be considered positive and progressive. Gradually, Bodhi becomes increasingly manageable—the bites from purely defensively and aggressively painful and damaging to increasingly rough in a playful way. The chewing and plucking has all but stopped, with beautiful and complete feathers slowly replacing damaged ones.

And with that, he rewards us with golden moments of pleasant surprises and laughter. Bodhi “help” us answers the phone ringing with ‘hellos”, greet us “good morning” when we uncover the cage cloth every morning, shake hands with us and say “bye bye” when we leave for work or school. When we’re finally home, he’ll often ask “how are you” as well. There are even the rare occasions when Bodhi mutters “I love you” and “thank you”, so fleetingly we almost miss what he said. Bodhi also has a soft spot for children, getting all excited and charming them with human words to the glee and giggles of little boys and girls.

Life with an Amazon, particularly a veteran one that has been through human induced bad experiences and survived, is somewhat like the bird itself—predictably unpredictable. They demand a respect for their tendencies towards shrill-loud calls, their aggressive hormonal behaviours, mood swings, needs and wants. In return, they give you themselves. What more can we ask for from a fellow intelligent creature?

If anything, Bodhi teaches me an important lesson in life: with understanding comes love.

For verily, to love an Amazon, is to understand him/her.

Perhaps the same could be said for all our other parrots, companion animals and fellow humans?

Video Clips

Bodhi playing with one of his favourite toy: Movie: Bodhi playing shaker 02 edited.wmv (967 KB)

Bodhi greeting: Movie: Bodhi saying how are you.wmv (235 KB)

Bodhi requesting to shake hand and saying hello: Movie: Bodhi shaking hand and hello.wmv (284 KB) 

Bodhi singing "happy birthday" in the background. We are unable to record him singing 'live'. He seems to be camera shy when it comes to singing: Movie: Bodhi singing Happy Birthday.wmv (630 KB) 

Bodhi waving byebye: Movie: Bodhi waving bye bye.wmv (410 KB)

Manju, baby of the family. Photo taken when he is 3 months old.

Manju as an adolescent, 1 and a half years old approx.

Manju, the Congo African grey Parrot

(writeup coming up)

Video Clips

Manju playing on his back: Movie: Manju playing on his back.wmv (1,133 KB)

Manju saying "ni hao ma" (how are you in Chinese, the "hello" in the background is by Bodhi): Movie: Manju saying ni hao ma.wmv (482 KB)

Baby, the Blue and Gold Macaw at a friend's place.

Baby, the Blue and Gold Macaw

Baby is a three year old macaw that comes from a bird farm, been with two previous owners before being adopted by me. I adopted Baby from a friend, who unfortunately has to give up all his parrots due to some personal issues. I'm glad to be able to take over the care of Baby because I have seen her through most of her three years as both her previous owners are my friends. I just hope with my heart, this will be her last home ever.

She's such an exceptional macaw! Rarely does she exercise the full power of the macaw voice she is capable of. Instead, she prefers to mumble and talk human. Why, my Tara can even be louder than Baby on many occasions. That is how its even possible to house her in my apartment when almost all parrots literature says no to macaws in apartments.

Still, lots of room space in my bird room has to be dedicated to fulfil her needs. I build her a play gym made out of non-toxic acacia branches. Her previous owners have never housed her in a cage before and so I'm still unsure about getting her one. Thus, I go ahead with a play gym first and decide whether to get her a cage later once she has adjusted to her new home and caregiver.

Initially, I'm pretty daunted by her massive size, of which I'm not used to (the biggest bird I'm comfortable with is my blue fronted Amazon, Bodhi). While Baby has to cope with adjusting to a new home and new caregivers, my family and I have to learn to overcome our fear for her, despite my keenness in keeping a macaw! I'm with the rationale that keeping companion parrots require not just the behavioural modifications on the part of these intrinsically wild but super intelligent creatures, but also demand changes in our attitude and behaviour. This is to allow for confidence and trust building between both us and our parrots.

So back to Baby's story, I have it going between me and her. Initially, she nip me pretty hard with scratches, bleeding and bruises to prove the point. Basically, she tested me all the time to see how far she can go with me. Thankfully, over time, my fear for her has slowly dissipate as I get used to her size and begin to understand her macaw personality better. All these threats, squawking and lunging are part of her mischievuous and playful way of getting some fun out of me--a fearful stranger! So once my fear for her dissipates and while she begin to get used to the new home and people, things progress rapidly.

Now, not only am I able to step her up and handle her whereever she is, I'm also able to cuddle her, kiss her and even cut her nails and clip her wings without any restrain. She might complain with some sqwuaks and half hearted nips but she knows her place and what kind of relationship we're both in and grudgingly cooperates...but not without some show of disagreement to retain her pride.  

Her previous owner informed me she started feather picking in the week long vacation he took recently, where only the maid cared for the bird.  She also has this habit of bending her beautiful tail feathers and use them to tickle her face. As funny as it can be, it does damage most of her tail feathers some of which are broken in this manner. We believe these are due to all those unexpended macaw energy and boredom that pushes her into these self-destructive behaviour.

Part of the challenges of keeping her, as do all large macaws, is to find enough toys and activities to keep them enagaged and away from boredom and her feather chewing habits. I provide her with a play gym with toys and natural branches to play with. I have also started to bathe her several times a week, which she relishes much, flapping her wings with gusto and imitating human laughter while drying her feathers. All this while, monitoring and keeping a close observation to see how the feather chewing is developing.

Talk human she did, which make me pleasantly surprised when she says "hello", "what", "whatever", "go back", "Robert", "huh?', "step up", "stop it" and "byebye", many a time within the right contexts and situation. She'll lift up her feet and say "step up" when she wants to get out to play. When Tara or Bodhi is doing their morning vocalizations and getting too noisy, she might say "stop it". If she don't like what you're doing to her, say clipping her nails, she' say it too.

Once, she found her way to the window railings, look out the window into the open sky and trees in the park and turn to me saying, "Bye Bye". I would have a heartattack there and then if I did not know the window glass panel has already been closed!

I believe as large birds with large personalities, they will continue to test the boundaries with us and see how much they can tweak us around. And for a tame macaw thats comfortable with humans, this can be done with a playfulness and high level of energy thats distinctivenely macaw. On the other hand, particularly with macaws that are tender of age, they may behave mildly and sweetly. Let not these baby stages deceive us into letting down our guards for their powerful beaks are to be respected. And there may be times when they get over stimulated in their play with us and deliver a hard damaging nip. Consistent socialization and having the firm upper hand will go a long way in our lives with these big babies of the parrot world.

Boy have I learnt alot since taking in this big Baby!

*Author's End Note:

I would like to thank all the kind and generous people at fluffies.org for making this personal space possible for all fo us to share our love and experiences for our feathered friends!!

Thank you so much!!!

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 Coming up next:

*Manju's writeups*More photos*More videos*