Parrot Sanctuary- Vancouver Island

When I was a lot younger, I had parakeets.  I had 3 of them, one for its entire lifespan of close to a decade and a half, and I had 2 others, at different times, that were adopted.

They were so much fun.  I would get home from school and they would just jump on my shirt or shoulder.  We ended up taking the door off of the cage.  They were truly a lot of fun.

Birds are so sweet, but they are needy.  They do require a lot of attention.  And they can live for a long time.

It is not uncommon for a parrot or other bird to outlive its owner.  And, often, relatives or friends may be unwilling to adopt the bird.

Luckily, the World Parrot Refuge is available to help with this problem. 

We visited the World Parrot Refuge on Vancouver Island and I must say that I am now a huge fan of this place.  We saw many birds (they claim to have over 900).

You buy your ticket in the thrift shop in front of the building where the parrots are at.  The very friendly lady running the shop told us all about the birds, mapping out the building and all.  She gave us ear plugs for one room in particular where the birds are known to get loud.

There are several large hallway/rooms once inside, with various birds all around.

I quickly found several birds that were full of personality.  Many talked very clearly and I feel like I had conversations with many of them.

"Hello" and "Pretty bird" were statements I heard a lot on this day.

Many were so eager to interact with humans in any way.  I saw several sticking their small heads out of the cages to get a better look at the humans coming by.  One did a cute trick where he held on to the cage with his beak, and then moved each leg up and down.  It was adorable!

One bird would stick his small foot out offering to shake hands, and he would say "hello".

Towards the back is a large room where the birds are pretty much in the open.  This is the room where we were warned that the birds might be loud.  We were told about a large blue bird that was pretty much guaranteed to interact with us.

I did notice that some would not go in this room.  One person in our group used the ear plugs, and a bird swooped down and stole one.  The large blue bird did come down and land on us.  In a split second, he bit off a large shiny button on my wife's coat.  Later, he landed on me and was still chewing on the button, passing it from his beak to his foot.

At one point, I was in this room pretty much by myself, and the large blue bird, and two smaller white ones landed on me.

The blue bird was on my right arm, one bird on my jacket collar on the back of my jacket, and one on my left arm.

The small white bird on my left arm was chatty and playful.  He boasted of how pretty he was.  I laughed at him, and he laughed back.  I shook my head at him, and he shook back.  When not talking he was playing with the zippers on my jacket.

I loved the three birds on me, and I hated to leave them.

It did bring me joy to know that they will surely get many human visitors most days.  They probably have an endless supply of buttons and ear plugs.  And they have each other, along with the caring people who run the World Parrot Refuge.

Check out their site.  Make sure you visit if you are on Vancouver Island!

http://worldparrotrefuge.org/