Cockatiels inhabit the savannah and grassland of Australia but nowadays they are also frequently seen in urban areas.

They are generally peaceable birds that are often kept on a colony in aviaries. Cockatiels that are bred in captivity come in an array of colours from grey to white to yellow! And, of course, combinations of all these colours.
A normal clutch is 4-7 eggs.

The plumage of an adult Cockatiel is generally greyish-blue. They have a yellow crest and head with orange-yellow ear markings. Their wing coverts are white and they have brown eyes, a greyish blue beak and dark grey legs. The female Cockatiels are generally duller in colouration. Their wing coverts are greyer and their eye markings are darker than the male.

Sun Conure – aratinga solistitialis
Length: 30cms/12 inches
Weight: 100-130 grams
Life span: 30-35 years
Incubation: 23-26 days
Age at weaning: 10 weeks
Age at maturity: 2-3 years
Natural habitat: Venezuela, Brazil, The Guyanas, south of the Amazon

Sun Conures frequent palm groves, open forests and savannahs. They are generally seen in flocks and this brilliantly coloured bird, with it’s screeching call, always betrays it’s presence. Large flocks will congregate to feed in trees bearing ripening fruit.Their diet is seeds, nuts, fruit, berries, buds and blossoms.

They nest in holes in trees, wood pecker holes are favoured. A normal clutch is 3-4 eggs.The Sun Conure is mostly bright yellow in colour, darkening to orange colour around their eyes and on their chest. Their flight feathers are blue and green and their tail is yellow melting into green with blue on the tips.

Length: 35cm/14inches
Weight: 480-550 grams
Life span: 20-30 years
Incubation: 26 days
Age at weaning: 60 days
Age at maturity: 2 years
Natural habitat: Pacific coast from Northwest Costa Rica North to Eastern Oaxaca Southern mexico

They Yellow Naped Amazon inhabits semi-arid woodland, arid scrub and savannahs. They are generally found in pairs or small flocks gathering together in larger flocks to roost. These birds are strong fliers and fly quite high when travelling long distances. They used to gather in flocks of several hundred or more but this is now rare due to trapping. They spend most of the time perched in the trees and in flight, searching for food. They give a reiterated screech, and whistling notes, when disturbed.Their diet consists of seeds, nuts, fruit, berries, and figs.Their nests are built in unlined hollows in, living or dead, trees. Mating usually occurs from February to May, a normal clutch is 2-4 eggs.

The plumage of the adult Yellow Naped Amazon is mostly green, with large patches of yellow on the napes of their necks. Some birds also have a yellow blaze on their foreheads. Yellow Naped Amazons tend to be a lighter, brighter green than other Amazon species. Their bill is horn coloured and their legs a pale grey. Immature birds have no yellow on their napes. The yellow nape begins to molt in when they are between 18 months to 2 years old. It continues to get larger as the bird ages

Length: 38-51cm/15-20 inches
Weight: 350-500 grams
Life span: 40-60 years
Incubation: 30 days
Age at weaning: 14 weeks
Age at maturity: 3 years
Natural habitat: Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, New Guinea and offshore islands.

The Greater Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is a fairly common bird in lowland forests and savannah country. In Australia they are common inhabitants of forests, open wooland and farmland. They are noisy, conspicuous birds. Usually found in pairs or small family parties during the breeding season, at other times they are found in flocks of several hundred. Whenever they frequent open countryside they have a sentinel warning system. A few birds remain perched at the top of trees while the flock feeds on the ground below. At the approach of danger the sentinels rise into the air screeching loudly. The rest of the flock are warned and they too rise into the air.

They feed on seeds, fruits, berries, nuts, flower, leaf buds, roots as well as insects and their larvae. They are known as pests in crop-growing areas, although they do eat a considerable amount of weed seeds as well.
They nest in a hollow limb or tree trunk, generally high up and frequently near a water source. The normal clutch is 2 eggs.
The adult Greater Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is mostly white. They have a large forward curving crest which is yellow. Like the Lesser Sulphur Crested they have yellow under their wings and tail, this is easily seen when they are in flight. Their beak is black and their eye rings are white.

Length: 85cm/34 inches
Weight: 900-1100 grams
Life span: 50-60 years
Incubation: 25-26 days
Age at weaning: 16 weeks
Age at maturity: 2.5-3 years
Natural habitat: South and Central America including Guyana, Columbia, Bolivia, Peru and Honduras

Scarlet Macaws can generally been seen in lowland tropical forests and the savannah. They are normally in pairs, family parties or small flocks. Like all macaws they have a strong pair bond. They fly daily from their roosting site directly to their chosen feeding ground.They feed on seeds, fruit, nuts, berries and leaf buds they have even been known to eat flowers and nectar. They nest in hollows, in the tallest trees and normally have a clutch of 3-5 eggs.
The plumage of the Scarlet Macaw is mostly bright red. The feathers of their lower mantle are red tipped with yellow and their scapulars are yellow with green tips. Their back and upper tail coverts are blue. Their flight feathers are blue above, olive green below and the rest of the wing red. The uppertail is red with blue tips the under tail is red. Their lores and cheeks are bare white skin which flushes when the bird is excited, and their eyes have yellow iris’s. Their upper beak is horn coloured changing to black at the tip, their lower beak is black and their legs are charcoal colour. A immature bird has a shorter tail and brown iris’s.

Length: 33cms/13 inches                    
Weight: 400-650 grams
Life Span: 40-50 years
Incubation: 28 days
Age at Weaning: 12-16 weeks
Age at Maturity: 3-4 years
Natural Habitat: Central Africa, Tanzania, Western KenyaAfrican

Grey parrots are birds of the lowland forests and coastal mangroves. They congregate in large flocks at roosting sites. They start to congregate at these roosting sites from before dusk till after night fall. Several hundred birds use the same roost. Favourite roosting sites are tall trees bordering forests, in forest clearings or on island on lakes or rivers. They tend to follow regular routes to and from roosting sites, flying high about he tree tops calling loudly. Their call consists of high pitched screams and whistles and when alarmed a harsh screech.

Their distribution is largely identical to the range of the African oil palm, the fruit of which forms the bulk of the birds diet. They frequently visit open country and savannah woodlands to feed, they also raid maize crops causing considerable damage! Their normal diet is found in the treetops, and it consists of seeds, nuts, fruits and berries.
The nesting site is usually as high as possible in a tree hollow. A normal clutch consists of 3-4 eggs, occasionally 5. Nesting is usually from July to September in Uganda, early August in the Congo, January in Nigeria and April in Liberia.
The adult plumage of the African Grey is generally a pale grey color. Feathers of the head and neck are margined with whitish grey and those of the abdomen with dark grey. The rump is very pale grey and their primaries are covered by very dark grey almost black feathers. Their tail and adjacent tail covets red and their legs are dark grey. The facial area is whitish with a bare skin patch around the eyes, their iris’s are pale grayish-yellow and their beak is black. The eyes of the younger birds are grey but change to grayish-yellow in adulthood.

Choosing A Parrot
Under no circumstances should you pick a fearful shy bird. Many mean biters, however, are wonderful talkers. The parrot should sit relaxed on the perch, not stiff or cowed back and frightened. A cowering bird will never learn to talk. Do not pick a bird that growls at you or rears back on its perch. Laughing and dilating and constricting their pupils are signs of aggression, not fear. The parrot should to come to you to be scratched cocking its head sideways.talk

If you have obtained a baby parrot just out of the nest, talking will come a lot easier. Start training as early as you can while the baby is still on formula. Birds of this age bond readily to humans and develop the relaxed confidence. Be gentle, kind and patient and these birds will quickly learn to trust and respond to you. They should be comfortable when being handled. Don’t expect a young baby parrot to start talking immediately. As long as they are “clucking” for food they will not talk. But exposing them to words and phrases at this early age primes them to talk rapidly when they are old enough. These babies will cock their heads, listen to you intently and recognize words even though they are too young to talk. By the time smaller parrots are 4-6 month old and larger parrots are 6-12 months old they will begin repeating words and phrases.

Turn off the TV and radio and stop any activities that may be a distraction. Have other family members and pets leave the room. Let in the sunlight. Birds key off of the emotion and gusto in your voice, not the word itself. So how you say a word is more important to the parrot than what you say. To teach a parrot to talk you need to be the center of the bird’s attention. A parrot that is learning will look and listen to you intently while you speak. It will stand high on the perch with an alert body stance. You may notice that its eye pupils change in size rapidly. Say the word in a loud clear voice with a slight hesitation between repetitions.

When teaching a bird to name objects pick objects that are small and colorful. The reward in these cases should be giving the bird the object. For example, if the bird correctly calls key chain, give the bird the key chain to play with. This technique works well with the word grape. Grape is apparently an easy word for parrots to say. Some other easy words are key, paper, box, corn, carrot, nail, water, treat, bean, and rock.

Parrots learn to talk better from high-pitched feminine voices of women and children. Once the bird is relaxed begin the lesion. Keep the training periods no longer than fifteen to twenty minutes at a stretch. Start with simple, short words and phrases such as hello and good morning. Hold the bird perched on your hand or finger about twelve inches from your mouth. You can also do this with the bird perched on a tee stand.

Resist the urge to whistle at your parrot, as this will hinder him from learning to talk. However, after he’s mastered a few words, it’s okay to whistle. Also, parrots do much better with a live trainer than a recorder. However, if you’re limited in time and feel it’s the only way to teach him, then keep the phrases on the recording clear and simple, playing it for only about 15 minutes at a time, twice daily.

Teaching your parrot to speak
1. When trying to teach your bird to speak you have to always start with imitative speech.

2. Choose a simple word, usually with one or two syllables, and start teaching your parrot that word.

3. Do not try to teach you parrot multiple words immediately because it will only confuse the bird.

4. Begin with a simple “Hi” or whatever word you want. The important thing is to stick to your chosen word.

5. Repeat the word firmly, slowly, and distinctly every few seconds until your bird makes a sound in response.

6. Reward your bird with a treat as soon as it makes a sound. The sound doesn’t even have to sound like the word you are trying to teach.

7. Repeat this process as you work closer to making it sound more like the word you are teaching. The parrot will eventually attach the reward with its imitation and will perform to get the reward.

8. Lavish it with praise especially for imitations that get closer to the sound you’re aiming for. Learning a new word can take just a few sessions for some birds while it can take a couple of months and even more for some.

9. Once your parrot has learned to repeat one word consistently then you can start on a new word and keep on doing it until his vocabulary gets bigger.

10. Do not jump to big words at once though teach your parrot simple words at first and go for bigger ones only after he has learned several easy ones.

Teaching your parrot to respond
1. If you wish to teach your bird to respond, teach it to imitate the response or the answer first.

2. Once it has mastered the response then its time to begin asking the question.

3. Prompt your bird to say the response and reward it for a proper answer.

4. Repeat the process until your parrot consistently responds with the right answer every time the question is asked.