Macaws:
Red Shouldered (Hahn's) Macaw
Severe Macaw
Blue And Gold Macaw
Blue Throated Macaw
Military Macaw
Red Fronted Macaw
Scarlet Macaw
Green Winged Macaw
Hyacinth Macaw
I would like to announce to you the winners of the parrot clicker contest. I'm thrilled that so many parrot lovers participated for a chance to win.
The clicker is a fundamental tool for parrot training and I am happy to be able to share it with our winners. Henry from North Carolina won a clicker by subscribing to the Trained Parrot Blog. Marian from Missouri won a clicker by liking the Trained Parrot facebook page. And laducockatiel from the UK won a clicker by posting a link to the Trained Parrot Blog on his website. Congratulations to our winners and I wish them great success in their training efforts.
Finally I'd like to thank all of my supporters and participants. I'm glad you all took the time to follow my blog and allow me to share my parrot training endeavors with you. I hope everyone can give parrot clicker training a shot. If you don't already have a clicker or would just like a copy of Kili & Truman's favorite clicker, you can order them on the Parrot Wizard site.
To commemorate posting my 200th video on youtube, I would like to host a small contest as a way to say thanks and give back to my loyal viewers and readers. At first I was just going to do it for a single clicker but I know how much fun it is to win so I decided to make three different ways to win a clicker to that more people could get one to start training their parrot. As an added bonus, a 25% off coupon for a single order of any products from my Parrot Wizard toy and training supply store is also included!
A clicker is very helpful for parrot training as it can be used as a consistent bridge and secondary reinforcer for trick training. If you are reading this blog, then chances are you've read all about clicker use in training in my articles and seen me use it in my videos. I give treats to my parrots for tricks more randomly but prefer to maintain the consistency of click for correct behavior every time. This way they learn to always do the right behaviors even if they aren't getting a treat for them because it is at least confirmed to them with a click.
Now onto the ways to win. There will be 3 separate random drawings for a single winner from each of the following categories. This means you can win as many as 3 times or more likely just have a better chance of winning than if there were only one drawing.
1) Subscribe to the Trained Parrot blog. This is such a no brainer. Find the green box called "Subscribe to Blog" in the left hand column of any page on this site and enter your name and email. Be sure to use a valid email address or I won't be able to reach you in case you won. You can use your first or full name, but I will only mention by first name who the winners are on the site and then notify by email. Subscribing to the blog is a way of showing your support for the cause even if you don't want frequent emails about updates. You can manage you subscription and set it up for weekly updates about new blog posts or even opt out of receiving emails. Please limit 1 subscription per person.
2) "Like" the trained parrot facebook page. Simply log into facebook, visit this page, and click "like" to be a member of the trained parrot facebook community. Not only will you receive facebook notifications of new blog posts, but you will also get to hear funny stories and updates about the whereabouts of Kili & Truman that are not posted anywhere else.
If you already subscribed to the blog or liked the facebook page, there's no need to do it again! Everyone already signed up is automatically included in this contest as a thanks for your continued support.
3) Finally the last method is for owners of websites, blogs, and other web pages. Link to Trained Parrot Blog, The Parrot Forum, and/or Parrot Wizard websites from your page for a chance to win in this third drawing. You can improve your chances of winning by linking all three sites on a single site or linking my parrot sites from other websites you own. In other words, every link you make from every site counts as an additional "raffle ticket" toward winning. Limit 1 link per my parrot site on your page (one to each of the 3 sites I mentioned) but no limit to number of your own sites you can post these links on. Notify me of the sites you posted links on by entering them on this page. Feel free to submit as many times as you want as long as they are all valid and follow these guidelines. However, abusing the system could lead to disqualification.
Link to any one, two, or three of these sites you choose:
Keep in mind that it has to be your own site or page. Links from forums, social networks, and other people's pages will not be counted toward the contest because I don't want to encourage anyone to go spamming in attempt to win. However, if it is your own website, blog, or public page (something like myspace would be ok, but facebook wouldn't), then feel free to link to any one of those three sites you like or all three of them to triple your chances.
The contest duration will be one month and winners will be selected on July 6th. With people going away for summer vacations and such, I want to leave sufficient time for everyone to have a chance to participate.
As you can obviously tell, the purpose of this contest is to get the word out about my parrot training sites. I hope that the more people that can see them, the more owners will be equipped with the tools and knowledge to build a loving relationship with their parrot based on trust and positive reinforcement. Thank you for your support and good luck with the contest!
Here is the fine print about the contest rules. Everyone is welcome to participate, however, only winners in US or Canada are eligible to receive clicker and coupon as no cost. International winners would be responsible for paying international shipping for clicker if they choose to claim it. International winners are still eligible for 25% coupon but are responsible for the cost of international shipping for products. 25% Parrot Wizard coupon is for all products in a one time purchase (limit 10 products) and does not apply to shipping charges. Any abuse of the contest (such as same person signing up multiple times for same contest category or submitting illegitimate sites for links) could result in disqualification from winning. If winners in each category cannot be located within 7 days of contest completion, are ineligible, or turn down their prize, the contest will continue to be redrawn in that category until a winner can be rewarded. Winners will be responsible for providing me their shipping details by email to receive their prizes but can be assured their information will be kept private. I will only announce winners by their first name and will not disclose their email or further details without their permission. I would appreciate a photo and update of winners clicker training their parrot if possible to post on the blog as a follow up. The contest details should all go as stated above but since I haven't done this before and cannot foresee what kind of issues I could run into, I reserve the right to discontinue the contest or amend the rules at any time. Thanks for your understanding and for participating.
The movie Rio was finally released in theaters today after many months of anticipation. This is perhaps the largest and most prominent feature film centered around parrots ever. From a parrot owner's perspective, this is my impression of the movie as well as the realism of parrot ownership that it conveys.
The story opens in the forest outside off Rio De Janeiro where birds do morning song and dance ritual. While the singing/dancing is of course personified, it certainly alludes to the natural morning song that birds sing.
We get our first glimpse of Blu, the movie's hero, as a baby in a nest cavity. Parrots nest in cavities rather than building nests on branches so this was an accurate depiction. Blu is captured by poachers and smuggled to Minnesota. Like in half the pet featured movies out there, the crate carrying the hero character falls out of a truck and is discovered by the future owner. Not only does this make the owner appear benevolent for saving a lost animal, but it also absolves the owner from responsibility for buying into the illegal pet trade. However, there is actually some truth to the matter.
Rio is actually partly based on a true story and a real species of Macaw. The movie simply refers to Blu as a Blue Macaw, however, at a later point in the movie Cyanopsitta Spixii species is mentioned. The Spix Macaw is one of four Blue Macaw species and was endemic to Brazil. However, due to poaching and deforestation of their natural habitat, Spix Macaws went extinct in the wild in the year 2000. Nonetheless, over 60 Spix macaws have been known to remain in captivity after their wild counterparts went extinct. Two years after the last Spix was observed in the wild, a veterinarian in the the United States was shocked to be consulted by an owner of one in Denver.
Presley was estimated to be 25 years old and DNA confirmed to be a male Spix Macaw. In the movie, Blu was unable to fly although he was fully feathered. Presley on the other hand became accustomed to a life down low from being clipped. Presley, like Blu, also ended up in his caretakers possession by chance rather than being bought.
Blu is flown out to Rio De Janeiro to be mated with the last known female of his kind. Unlike Blu, Presley was not actually the last Spix Macaw. However, he was one of a few and breeders of the Brazilian rehabilitation program for Spix Macaws required his DNA to help diversify the excessively inbred offspring they were producing. Unlike Blu, Presley was actually given a one way ticket to Brazil, never to return to his owner. The population of Spix Macaws is so fragile that rehabilitators do not want to take any chances. Interestingly, the biggest population of Spix Macaws in captivity is not actually in Brazil but rather in Qatar. 56 out of 73 known captive Spix Macaws are in Qatar and only 7 in Brazil.
The movie places a much greater significance on Blu as the last of his kind to simplify the story line and make his adventures more thrilling. A funny scene that reminds me of real parrot ownership is when Linda, Blu's caretaker, wakes up at 7:15AM to the sound of an alarm clock. She fumbles to turn it off and even unplugs it but the blasting noise does not stop. It was actually her parrot that was making all the noise. Any parrot owner can tell you that as soon as the sun appears, parrots cannot help but make as much noise as they are capable of and wake everyone up.
Rio depicts parrots very well both visually and metaphorically. Sure they don't dance and sing, but vocalizing and flying really is a part of who they are. While the eyes are made to look human and a tuft of feathers on the head like hair, the placement of the feathers appears quite accurate. The feathers would shift from being slick to fluffy much like the feathers on a real parrot express its mood. The birds move their beaks and wings as they talk but more unrealistic is the depiction of the eyes. Prey bird eyes tend to look outward to the sides and be less mobile. Yet the movie generally had the parrots looking straight in front of them and frequently showed them rolling their eyes in relevant directions.
While I am not holding a children's cartoon to the highest expectations of realism, I am greatly disappointed that it showed Linda giving a cup of hot chocolate and plate of chocolate chip cookies to Blu. Chocolate is one of several household foods most toxic to parrots. It would be wildly irresponsible for an owner to feed that to a parrot. But most of all I worry that some children seeing the scene in the movie could acquire the idea of feeding chocolate to their family parrot.
The movie was presented in 3D which was very suitable. Some 3D movies lack enough depth to justify being 3d, but in Rio it definitely improved the movie. There were scenes where the birds would practically fly out of the screen and many other scenes where depth was depicted realistically. Also, the animation style has greatly improved since the earlier Ice Age films. The realism of both humans and animals has come a long way in digital animation. The detail in the feathers and gestures of the birds is spectacular and life like.
Of course, like the previous Ice Age movies, the plot is focused around the animals and the animals carry many human like qualities. However, I think Rio has demonstrated a greater ability to create human like characters without losing their animal qualities. Yet, the movie never once showed the parrots eat or poop. Considering how birds do their business roughly every 15 minutes, the absence of it paints a rosier picture of owning one. Rio presents many of the positive aspects of parrot ownership but none of the bad ones. The fact is that parrots are very messy, noisy, and aggressive. The movie depicted that the relationship between Blu and Linda came naturally, but the reality is that it takes many years of careful taming and training to make a good pet out of an otherwise wild species of parrot. Cleaning cages, preparing food, and general care occupy much of a parrot owner's time.
A scene familiar to most parrot owners is when Linda has to feed vitamins to Blu and he refuses. Anyone who has ever had to feed medication or something important to a parrot will be able to relate to the lack of cooperation on that end. Also, the movie depicts the way parrots stand on people's arms quite well. You can visualize the weight of the parrot when it steps up. The animation of flying parrots looks as realistic as you can get.
The movie seems to make a good depiction of the city of Rio. Although I have not been to Rio specifically, I have traveled to Brazil twice. The movie blends the plot and different scenes of city life as well. Many species of parrots were represented in the movie including green wing macaws, amazons, military macaws, and golden parakeets.
I found the topic of flight particularly touching. Blu's inability to fly much reminded me of my parrot, Kili, when her flight feathers grew back after her original clip. Despite the fact that she had the feathers required for flight she did not know what to do with them. However, having the heart and motivation to fly alone wasn't enough. I had to train her for months to get her flight skills and muscles up to speed. Blu takes to the skies all too quickly when he finally decides to fly. 15 years of muscle atrophy is not solved simply with a bit of will power. I think a montage of the owner training the bird to fly would have been more inspiring.
I was relieved that the movie did not aim to force a political agenda upon the audience. I don't mind a subtle message even if it's one I disagree with, but I never enjoy a movie that is foremost concerned with lobbying viewers toward the makers' viewpoint. I was worried that the movie would end up being political and opposed to private parrot ownership but instead it gave a positive and unbiased view both of ownership and conservation without putting them in opposition to one another. When Jewel called Blu a pet, he replied that actually he's a companion. The movie did a great job showing the human-bird relationship that parrot owners develop with their birds. Ignorant movies often make it look like cages birds desire nothing more but liberty but in fact companion parrots become so accustomed to household life that they enjoy it. Blu said at one point in the movie, "how I wish I was back in my cage with my mirror and my little bell." I can imagine that my own parrots would feel much the same way if they got lost. Household life is what they are used to so it is the way they want to live.
Rio is a story of love, escape, companionship and adventure. I highly recommend seeing it both to parrot owners and non-owners alike. It is a very well made movie with an enjoyable plot and good depiction of some of the aspects of parrot ownership. It is just important to realize that there is a lot more difficulty to parrot ownership than the movie depicts. So if the movie inspires you to get a parrot, consider buying some of the Rio toys or games instead. Then take your time and read the articleson this blog and consult owners on The Parrot Forum to help you decide if parrot ownership is really right for you.
There is plenty more to the plot than my review or the trailers will show you, so it is well worth it to go see the movie in 3D before it hits the DVD shelf. Feel free to post your thoughts about the movie in the comments as well as any accuracies/inaccuracies that you have encountered.
Kili and Truman are excited that there will final be a major feature film about parrots. They're already stocking up on their Rio memorabilia! Truman plays with a plush toy of the main character Blu, a rare macaw. Meanwhile Kili marvels at Blu's friend Jewel and wonders how she can get her feathers looking like that. Finally Kili compares her wingspan to Blu and feels quite big about herself. Don't tell her this is just a miniature and the actual character much larger.
There has been tremendous hype about the movie for months but it is finally coming to theaters on April 15th. Who is planning to see it?
So finally the day has come when all of Kili & Truman's theater flight training would be put to the test. For two months I had been training them in the high school theater to get them not only accustomed to being on stage, but also to learn advanced indoor flight recalls.
Throughout the dozen or so training sessions we had both our ups and downs. There were fantastic training sessions in which both birds recalled eagerly. But there were also training sessions where the parrots would not budge a feather and would be nearly impossible to get them to fly. There were sessions when Truman spent the majority of the time up in some high place refusing to come down. However, each session yielded progress over the last by making the parrots more and more accustomed to being on stage. We trained with the stage lights on and eventually with music playing to test the parrots' resistance to distraction.
Nearing the show, I left for two weeks to travel around West Africa (yes, this happened before the performance but I have a lot of footage to edit so unfortunately you won't get to see this until later). During that time my brother came to take care of my birds but little training was done. When I returned, I had just a week to get the parrots ready for the big show. Normally I trained on Tuesday's and Thursday's, but this time I did not want to have a training session immediately prior to the Friday morning performance. So instead I did flight training two days in a row on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I gave the parrots a break on Thursday. Then Friday morning we had to get up very early to get to the school, set up, and do some flight recalls to warm up prior to the audience entering.
Originally I had a five minute speech planned about motivation and the basics of behavioral psychology but I had to bag that since I was pressed for time. I decided to show the 20 Tricks in 2 Minutes and Kili is the Word videos after the live performance because I realized that the props and birds are too small for people in the back to see. So in order to have time for the videos, I had to drop the talk. Mostly I was relieved to skip the talk because I had inadequate time to prepare it. It's a topic I have given much thought about and can have a good conversation about, but I would not be as good giving a speech about it. Before I learned about the time constraint, I felt obligated to make an educational moral to my performance by discussing psychology, learning, and motivation (all things I've learned from my parrots). So after the head of the upper school announced me, I just went straight to my parrot show by recalling Kili down from the balcony.
My brother was assisting me by releasing the birds to me. He had both parrots in a carrier and was ready to move quickly. As soon as he released Kili on the balcony, I bought him time to move downstairs while I introduced Kili. Then he released Truman from the back of the theater when I called his name. The students were shocked to find the birds swooping across and coming flawlessly to my hand. Audience members sitting up front later commented being able to feel the air rush over them as the parrots passed across on their route to my hand.
I had been debating with myself whether or not to fly Truman at all. In earlier training sessions we had major reliability problems. If he would miss the landing or just not feel like it, he would start flying around the theater and always land high. Unlike Kili, Truman would never replan his flight and come back down to me. At best he would land somewhere high and fly down but many times we had to get him ourselves. However, he did pretty well during the two training sessions prior to the performance so I decided to take a chance with him. During the training sessions immediately leading up to the show, I practiced the flight from the back of the theater to my hand many times with Truman instead of just random flights as I had been doing earlier. So with the extensive practice I felt that Truman knew what to do but still risked that if he missed my hand, he would fly off. I did some more practice the morning of the show and he did not fly off once, so I decided to go for it during the show.
I had Truman perform his tricks first to let Kili headline the show afterward. Truman was a bit hesitant at first. You see he had never been in front of such a large crowd and we basically tricked him by keeping him in a dark carrier and then releasing him straight on a flight he was accustomed to. So his first chance to see the crowd really wasn't until he had landed on my hand. It took a few seconds to get him to focus but eventually he did his tricks. By no means his best but he did fine. No matter how much motivation he may have had from hunger and social pressure, the novelty of the situation was still quite overwhelming for him.
Kili only had about ten seconds of stage fright, then she just blossomed. Kili just adored the attention performing her tricks and did better and better as the crowd reacted. I still fed her occasional treats so that in the future she would not distrust me not to give her treats during a performance, however, she was motivated to perform just as well without them. I could tell that she was doing it all for the attention and not the treats. This way I was able to give her tiny treats between just a few of the tricks to make the performance appear seamless. I forgot to have Kili do ring on peg but no one noticed because I went straight to play dead. When Kili dropped over and lay on her back, amazement beheld the crowd. None the less, I think the absolute favorite trick among a high school full of athletic students, was the basketball trick. I think the varsity team may be calling Kili back for try outs next season.
Not only did the performance go very well, but it was a very pleasing culmination of all the previous theater training efforts at the school. The birds learned advanced flight skills and expanded their performance capabilities. Now the performing parrot duo is ready to tackle virtually any indoor on stage performance.
Trained Parrot is a blog about how to train tricks to all parrots and parakeets. Read about how I teach tricks to Truman the Brown Necked Cape Parrot including flight recall, shake, wave, nod, turn around, fetch, wings, and play dead. Learn how you can train tricks to your Parrot, Parrotlet, Parakeet, Lovebird, Cockatiel, Conure, African Grey, Amazon, Cockatoo or Macaw. This blog is better than books or DVDs because the information is real, live, and completely free of charge. If you want to know how to teach your parrot tricks then you will enjoy this free parrot training tutorial.
Trained Parrot site content Copyright 2010-2020 Michael Sazhin. Reproduction of text, images, or videos without prior permission prohibited. All rights reserved.
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