A selection of the VIBs that have come to stay…
– FABULOUS FREDDIE –
Freddie is a 3 year old green cheek conure of the rainbow fabulous variety (or pineapple if you want to use the actual term). He’s a very beautiful boy and sort of looks like the type of bird you might have coloured in as a child, not imagining that such a fabulous combo might actually exist in the real world. It’s quite hard to capture his fabulousness on camera so, if you’re not already familiar with them, I’d encourage you to look up pineapple conures on Google to see them in all their glory!
His owners love him very much and he clearly rules the roost at home! As a result of this, he can be quite vocal about his needs… but mostly he feels he needs MORE CUDDLES so it’s hard to get annoyed with him even when he’s at his loudest (which is really quite loud!)
One of my favourite things that Freddie does is wave hello when he sees you – it’s ridiculously cute. He also enjoys hurling his ball around and splashy baths in the sink.
Freddie has been coming to stay since we started (he was in fact our very first official guest!) and we hope he’ll keep coming to see us for many years!
– ROCCO THE DIVA –
Rocco is a 3 year old rose crowned conure. She’s been coming to visit us regularly for the last couple of years and very much makes herself at home while she’s here.
She’s learned a lot of different words and sounds including ‘no, you stop it!’, ‘night night’ and ‘good boy’ (bit of confusion when she was younger!) She also whistles for us when we’re not in the room and wolf whistles when she sees me, which I very much enjoy! She’s not as loud as some other types of conure (I’m looking at you GCs!) and I would say on the whole she’s very quiet.
Sadly Rocco had a bit of a health scare last year because she’d been eating some foods that weren’t good for her (even if she did really love eating them!) This had started to affect her liver and her feathers started to turn white and fall out. But after a course of medicine, her health improved dramatically and thankfully she’s much better now.
She can be quite hormonal and will puff herself up and march over with a face on if she’s mad at you (I’m sorry for holding the remote and not you…) Generally she’s very sweet and cuddly though and we do hope she’ll continue to visit us for many years to come!
– MAYA THE ACROBAT –
Our resident VIB is a 3 year old kakariki called Maya. She loves to zoom around the house as fast as she can and gets into absolutely everything. This includes chewing holes in the back of drawers to make a secret nest, sneaking into wardrobes and setting up camp, and napping in my dressing gown hood when I’m not wearing it.
She’s really quite an independent bird and happily keeps herself entertained for hours. But she’s very affectionate in her own way and regularly comes back to check on me and say hi. We often catch her peeping at us when she thinks we can’t see her!
Maya’s great passion in life is food and she makes a big show of demonstrating foods she doesn’t like (drops in front of cage hastily while I’m looking over) and foods she really likes (eats with relish as close as she can get to me without risking me taking it away from her). In fact she loves food so much we have to be very careful not to give her too much! This is particularly true for fresh foods which can send her into a hormonal spike, and even lead to egg laying.
She’s not particularly phased by the succession of different guests but I would say she seems to appreciate having us to herself again when they leave!
THE BIRDIE LOUNGE 