The holidays are upon us and this is the first ever holiday edition of Sages in Cages. I hope you enjoy the stories and informative articles found here. What better bird to profile in our holiday issue than our very own Christmas birds, Eclectus parrots? With their deep red and emerald green colors, they do fit right in to the holiday decor, don’t they? Eclectus are dimorphic, meaning you can tell the males from the females without DNA sexing. The hens are always deep red with either royal blue or purple around the nape of the neck and extending down the chest, giving them an appearance of wearing an apron. The Solomon Island Eclectus hen has a blue eye ring, making her even more stunning. The Vosmaeri sub species has a yellow band across her tail. They have shiny black beaks. The males, on the other hand, like Gogo (above) are bright to emerald green with red in front of the wings, blue flight feathers and their trade mark “Candy Corn” beaks. They are breathtakingly beautiful as well as sensitive, comical and extremely bright. Eclectus rival greys in their ability to talk and reason. Although some are, Eclectus are not known to be especially cuddly birds. They do like to be where you are, and love to be at the center of things. I’ve also found that my Eclectus love outings. If properly socialized they are wonderful “birds about town”. You will find lots of stories and accounts of life with these beautiful birds in this issue.
Dr. Irene Pepperberg came to my home town and we hosted a fundraiser for the Alex Foudation last September. This issue holds a report on it as well as a look at the Amazona Society, a great organization dedicated to conservation of parrots in the wild. These two organizations are well worth your donation dollars. You will find links to them in the articles.
Sages in Cages has teamed up with Rogue Penguin to develop a message board for all bird lovers. It is called Flapdance. I hope you will give us a visit over there. It is a lot of fun! www.flapdance.roguepenguin.net
I would love to see more submissions from you, gentle readers, for our regular columns. If you have a story to share or a question for Katie the Bird Lady, please send an e-mail to sages@sagesincages.com and put the name of the column in the subject line. Feel free to send me your feedback at the address below. I look forward to hearing from you.
I hope your holidays are filled with laughter and good cheer!
- Editor
TM
By Kathie Jo Miller