I write this newsletter to you with tears in my eyes and a broken heart, yet with a sense of joy. I know that most of you will feel exactly the same once you read about the parrots Elite Parrots Club is helping provide with forever sanctuary homes, food and supplies.

It is a true tragedy what some misguided people will do to parrots. These six stories will surely touch you and make you want to do as much as is within your power to help parrots like these.

The six parrots represented here happen to be located in the United Kingdom. However, the same thing happens to parrots around the world, every single day. Please participate in helping those you can and educating people so these tragedies do not happen.

First, let me introduce you to Blue. The horrible person who owned her cut her wings off with pliers, as well as three of her toes. That person was prosecuted, but Blue was forever handicapped and traumatized. For the past four years, she has lived with only love, happiness and proper care in the sanctuary she calls home. She is not tame, but is never inside a cage and has fallen in love with Fred, who you will meet next.

Fred is an Amazon that was born blind. With this challenge and extra care needs, he was unable to be placed in a safe, loving home. He came to the sanctuary and manages to get around his play area, locate his food and water, and even play with toys. He’s not in love with Blue and the two are happy companions.

Damien is a very special parrot. He was rescued from a group who wrapped him in wire and were using him as a football. He is totally blind as a result, but still has fun with toys. His food, water and other cage items can never be moved because he can’t locate them unless he knows exactly where to go to get them. But, while he still bites hard, he is loved and well-cared for.

George is a gentle, sweet parrot who suffered a serious beak injury. We are happy to be a small part of the help he needsto have his beak rebuilt so that he can live a more normal life.

Tommy was beaten so often and so badly that he passed out from fear. He talks and the things he says indicate how horrible his life was in that awful place. He has fallen in love with Tilly, another parrot at the sanctuary, and is now a happy parrot. Everyone that meets Tommy falls in love with him immediately.

Hamish has been at the Sanctuary for 7 years. He came at 9 months old completely stripped of feathers, and dying of starvation. He was left over Christmas on his own with no food or water in a pet shop. When they found him they were going to put him down as he was so close to death but a wonderful man paid for him and brought him to the Sanctuary. He was rehomed about 4 years ago but stopped eating and sat on the floor of his cage. So he came home to the Sanctuary and that’s where he will stay.

These six parrots have been helped because of the support of loyal parrot owners who have chosen to become members of Elite Parrots Club. We hope to add others to our family of sponsored parrots. Become part of this effort by becoming an ELITE member today.

“Certificates Proof From “Parrot Care” UK Charity Organization”

Blue                                  Fred                               Damien

George                             Tommy                           Hamish

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About the Author: Nora Caterino, known as the Mississippi Bird Lady, has trained, raised, and lived with birds for over 30 years. If you want to receive unlimited one-on-one coaching from her for ONE full year… and while you learn how to teach your parrot to talk and stop annoying bird behaviours like parrot biting, screaming and feather plucking, via the audios, articles and videos published inside the Elite Parrots Club, then visit this page now:

http://www.eliteparrotsclub.com/talking.php

A complaint I’ve noticed coming in email a lot recently is:

“My bird loves me so much if he can’t see me he starts screaming. If I’m not around he will sit on dad’s shoulder very calmly, but as soon as I enter, he starts screaming and flapping and sometimes if I’m close by and my husband wants to take him out the cage, he just drop to the ground like a potato and starts screaming .”

Unfortunately, parrots don’t always like everyone in the home equally. In fact, they tend to bond to one person and it is not necessarily their caregiver. Optimally, you socialize the parrot when you first get him or her, but if you have not done that, you can still help reduce the over-bonding.

This can, to say the least, be a frustrating problem. Often the parrot will bite others in order to be with their favorite person. It thinks that if it runs all others away, their favorite person will be the only one that touches it.

The good news is that there is a solution. Here are the steps you can take to help reduce or resolve this problem:

Step 1: Reduce your time with the parrot: Parrots want attention. They will accept it wherever they get it. If the person who is over-bonded simply reduces the time spent with the parrot, over a period of time, the bird will adjust and become more social with others.

This can be a difficult thing to do because you want to be with your bird a lot. But it is an important step to take in order to reduce the screaming and potential nipping.

Step 2: Never reward, even unconsciously, any act of aggression or screaming when the bird is with others. Never take it back from the person; instead use a stick to make it step onto. Never laugh or be dramatic. Parrots just love drama and will repeat actions which provide drama.

Step 3: Have your parrot’s favorite foods and treats available to allow others to offer them. The over-bonded person should never provide treats during this training.

Step 4: Let others remove the parrot from the cage so that it gets the idea that other people are good and fun.

Step 5: During this training, any actions your parrot objects to but which must be done should be done by the over-bonded person. This will make the over-bonded person seem less fun. The idea is to get the parrot liking others more and the over-bonded person less, but it will still love everyone in the home in the end.

Step 6: When the parrot is interacting with the over-bonded person, keep the parrot BELOW eye level. This reinforces that the humans are the heads of the flock and is called “nurturing dominance”. In fact, ask everyone to keep the parrot below eye level.

Step 7: When the parrot screams for the over-bonded person, simply ignore it totally. Then, when it quiets down, have another person provide a treat. Make the period between becoming quiet and the treat become longer and longer as the parrot gets the idea that quiet = treat, noise = no attention. When the treat is given, the person should make a great, dramatic display of giving it and create lots of the well-loved drama.

If you practice this training for a period of time, the problem will improve and likely end. While parrots will use their voices to “contact call” their people, they should not endlessly scream. Any simple contact call should simply be ignored or, if you wish, answered once the training has worked. Until then, ignore all screaming.

Once you’ve solved the problem, be sure not to recreate it by going back to old habits. Keep the parrot interacting with the entire family and your friends. As soon as you go back to being the main person in the parrot’s life, it will return to its old habits too.

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About the Author: Nora Caterino, known as the Mississippi Bird Lady,or just Bird Lady for short, has trained, raised, and lived with birds for over 30 years. You can subscribe to access videos, audios, articles and receive unlimited one-on-one advice via  email for one full year at:

==>  http://www.eliteparrotsclub.com/talking.php

Have you ever thought about how your parrot sees you and what the bird has to deal with while living in a human environment?

This is simply a short story, written from a cockatoo’s point of view. The actual words spoken by the cockatoo are in red.

Well, I just woke up and it’s still dark in here. I better let my humans know it’s time they got up and uncovered me!

“SQUAWK! Good morning! SQUAWK!”

I hear them now. There’s water running in that funny room they spend so much time in doing strange things.

But I like when they take me in there to play in the water that magically comes out of the wall.

“Good morning! Come here! I love you! Good morning!”

Here she comes now. The covers are coming off my cage and I can see the sunshine outside my window. Time to eat! Look, my human has these strange new feathers today.

Yesterday she was all green except for her heads and somehow she’s grown all new feathers that are blue and some funny color like sand. I do not understand how these humans grow different feathers every single day everywhere except on their heads.

Their heads look really funny because there are no feathers except on the top and those hang down. But I like to play with those head feathers. My humans play with my head feathers too and I love that.

“Mommy, I love  you. Come here. Come here.”

She’s coming! She’s opening my door! Yeah!! I can get out now. I want her to pick me up and tickle my head.

Wait, she’s going back into that funny room where water comes out of the wall sometimes. She’s doing something strange to her head feathers. She’s making them all fluffy on top and the longs ones she’s making stay all together somehow so they hang down her back in one place. I wonder why she does that? I’m glad I don’t have to do stuff like that with my head feathers!

“Come here! I love you, Mommy!”

Yes, here she comes. Maybe she will pick me up this time. Here comes her hand. I’ll step on her hand and walk up her arm to her shoulder if she’ll let me. I want to play with those funny head feathers that she tied back somehow into this long crest. But my crest stands up so pretty and her’s just hangs there straight down her back. Oh yes, she’s sitting down with me and going to tickle me. I love when she does that.

“Pretty bird, I’m a pretty bird. Scritches”

I hope she never stops tickling my head feathers. She’s standing up and taking me with her! Yes! Fun!

We’re going into that other room that has water that runs out of a shiny thing.  She’s opening that thing that is cold inside. I can feel the cold coming out and making me chilly. What’s she going to get for me?

“Apple! Peanut! Hungry birdie!”

She’s chopping up some nice veggies and fruits and I think they are going to be for me! Look, she’s got raw corn on the cob. I love to pick those yellow things off that hard inside. What’s that yellow thing? Ooooh, it’s  a melon. I like that too. I don’t see any peanuts or walnut or pecans or even peanut butter though and I want those too.

“Peanut! Butternut! Cracker! Give me some! Yum Yum!”

There’s that round thing that got the yummy creamy peanuts in it. There’s the cracker. She’s making me a cracker corner with soft peanut stuff.

“Peanutbutter! Yummy! Give me some. Come on”

Oh yes, she’s handing me the cracker. Yummy. I can lick the bit of peanut butter off the cracker. I wish she’d give me lots more of it but she says something about it is fattening.

Now she’s taking my dish and putting those goodies into it. I am going to get breakfast now! Yes!

She’s taking me back to my house and putting my breakfast in there. I’m going back in and eat! I can play with her later. I’m hungry right now.

I’m going to walk down to her hand so I can step on my house easily. Look at that shiny stuff on her finger with that pretty sparkling stone in it. I want to get that sparkling thing!

“No, no, Baby, you can’t play with Mommy’s rings“, she says to me. I don’t know why I can’t have that sparkling thing on her hand for MY toy.

The very ends of her fingers have this strange red stuff on them. It looks like blood by my Mommy doesn’t seem to be hurt at all. If my toes were red like that, they’d hurt really bad and I’d scream. Why are her fingers bleeding, and why doesn’t the blood drip off? I don’t get it.

I’ll go in my house and see if she does something about her red fingers. Maybe it’s not blood, I wonder what it is? Should I clean it off for her after I eat and she picks me up again?

I think I should. I’ll try to help her because maybe she can’t get it off without my help. Maybe then she’ll give me that nice toy on her third finger to play with. But she always says it’s not for me. I’ll try again though.

Oh well, time to eat.  I’ll try all the stuff my cup and if I don’t like anything, I can throw it out of my house so it’s won’t be in my way.

“Thank you. Yummy.”

Now my crop is all full and I feel happy. Time to see if Mommy needs help cleaning her red fingers. They weren’t like that yesterday I’m sure so it must need to come off!

“Baby, that’s my new manicure. You can’t take it off! Let’s play with this nice white paper bag instead. I hid a surprise inside. It’s a walnut but you have to untwist the bag to get it”

Uh oh, Mommy doesn’t like for me to clean that stuff on her fingers. I better go see about this white puffy thing that rattles when Mommy shakes it. I can tear it up and make a big mess with all the pieces. Wait, there’s a nut inside!

“Thank you, good good!”

That was a tasty walnut. Now I’ll shred the rest of the white thing it was inside.

I think it’s time to nap now. I want to go to my house now.

“Mommy, go home.”

Mommy knows what that means. She’s letting me get on her hand with that shiny toy on her finger and taking me to my house.

I’m going to go to the top perch and get into that nice snuggle mop Mommy gave me to hide in when I sleep so nothing can eat me.

“Sleepy sleepy time.“.

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About the Author: Nora Caterino, known as the Mississippi Bird Lady, or just Bird Lady for short, has trained, raised, and lived with birds for over 30 years. You can subscribe to access videos, audios, articles and receive unlimited one-on-one advice via email for one full year at:

==>  http://www.eliteparrotsclub.com/talking.php