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.

One thing I discovered about having a lot of birds and an outside aviary, was exotic birds that have escaped from their owners, find you.

Barbara Heidenreich is a very dear friend and an expert animal trainer. I have attended several of her classes on parrot training, read her books and shared her DVD with people that could not attend Barbara's classes.

I met Barbara several years ago when we were volunteers cleaning parrot cages. I urge you to check out her website, www.GoodBirdInc.com, read her magazine and attend her training programs.

Believe it or not, I once had my own parrot (Tarah, my blue fronted amazon) fly out a door. I NEVER thought it would happen to me. He rarely flies and I had always been so careful. Fortunately I was able to get my bird back right away.

Rehabbing wild birds or taking in unwanted exotics, is expensive, and not tax deductible for us, according to the IRS. So we had to economize as much as possible. Fortunately, Jim can build anything. He built the muse, flight pens and cages to hold my rats. Raptors need meat and buying rats at a pet store was too expensive. We were often given frozen chicks to feed but ultimately we had no choice but to buy a few rats and breed our own. At one point I had over 500 rats and was able to supply other rehabbers.

Jim and I were on a walking tour of the island of Bali in Indonesia, which is north of Australia. I heard there was a bird market and could not resist. There were birds there from all over the Indonesian islands and many I had never seen before. The exchange rate, when we were there, was 10,000 to 1 US dollar. To say things were cheap is an understatement. Chickens and pigeons were sold as food and the rest as pets. It was a crowded dirty market but surprisingly the birds looked healthy. I would imagine they were all wild caught, but the language barrier prevented me from asking questions.