Jean, I am so happy to be involved with Birdlink Sanctuary, Inc. Whether one is in a position to care for the crippled and broken within humanity, or care for those in the animal kingdom, it is a privledge to be there. Naturally, living with, and loving a Pionus (named Poco), makes me partial to birds. You are doing a wonderful and selfless thing! Thank you for letting me be part of it.
~Jackie

The paper work is back from the Texas Secretary of State and Birdlink Sanctuary Inc., is officially a Not For Profit organization. We will do as we have been doing, taking in pet birds that can no longer stay with their owners. We will be writing grant requests and having small fund raisers to cover our cost of operation.

Donations are welcome, bird toys, cages, food, labor or cash. We can use it all. If you have any fund raising ideas, please contact me. If you have a bird that needs to be placed, contact me.

Can you tell what I am holding? This is an example of what was brought to me to raise. These babies birds can be fed and care for successfully, by people that know what to do. This little guy survived and bit me before flying away as a beautiful bluejay.

I just wanted to send a quick note to wish you a Happy New Year!I am looking forward to a great year and I hope you are too. It looks like I will be teaching a few workshops and making a few appearances this year and I wanted to make sure you knew about them in case you might be able to attend. Here is the schedule for this year so far.

January 22-24, 2010 "Parrot Festival" Houston, TX, USA. Barbara Heidenreich will be presenting at this event. Visit http://www.parrotfestival.org/ for more information.

I have a parrot that talks up a storm and I love it! I have also enjoyed working with amazing talking parrots like "Groucho" back in my days at Natural Encounters. (You can see a video clip of us both on the Tonight Show at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfDFa2sQj1s )

I recently sent out a survey about talking parrots and all I can say is "Wow! What a response." There were tons of people who participated. Thanks! My hope is to put those responses together into some useful resources to share with parrot owners, especially those interested in talking parrots.

The temperature is to drop into the "teens" tonight and not go about freezing for several days. This is actually an infrequent even in north Texas. We tend to focus on the heat rather than cold, which is just as deadly to our outside aviary residents.

Yesterday I frantically searched my aviary for "missing" love birds. I climbed up the tree to look into corners, and fell. I counted my love birds over and over, and two were missing. The aviary is secure, concrete walls, heavy wire, redwood and oak rafters, concrete waterfall with shallow ponds, surrounded by large rocks. Finally my husband came in to help me gentle lift the rocks looking for bird bodies. :-(

It has been a beautiful fall and I feel like cooking. Not for people but for my birds. I buy Jiffy cornbread mix and follow the directions. What makes it "Birdy Bread" are all the goodies you add. I chop in fresh jalapenas, sprinkle in bird seed and some fresh herbs from the garden. I bake according to directions and serve up when cool.

Jean,

One of the very cool new features I have added to "Get Your Bird Back" is immediate help. I realize some folks may have lost a parrot and not have the video in hand. If they were to buy the video in most cases they would have to wait a week before it would arrive in the mail.

To get around this dilemma, I have made it so that whenever you buy Get Your Bird Back, an email is sent immediately with useful resources. In the email is a link to download a two minute video clip from the DVD. This clip tells you what to do in those first moments after your bird flies away.