Giraffebean
New member
- Jul 27, 2021
- 2
- 0
Hello PF Members,
This is my first post so excuse me if I make mistakes as I'm not used to this format.
I have a question that I'll be brief with but will have more elaboration after the question for those who want to read further.
Question: Has anyone had any experience with an adult Macaw immediately bonding to a person upon first meeting and wants little or nothing to do with others?
Elaboration: My wife and I were vacationing on the Big Island and stayed at a B&B that had a large mango tree with about a dozen or so parrots of different types living there in what seemed to be a semi-enclosed environment. Our first morning we walked down to look at the birds and immediately a red Macaw, named Sunshine hopped over to me and started being friendly. The "bird compound" had a lot of ropes and wood connecting some of the smaller trees with the big mango so the birds did a lot of walking around as well as flying up into the heights of the mango.
As I started interacting with Sunshine, the owner of the B&B, (I'll call her Greta) saw us and shouted out "Be careful, she just bit the girl who was feeding her this morning." I backed away a little when I heard that but Sunshine immediately inched toward me. Greta came down where I was standing with my wife and Sunshine and said "That's unusual, she doesn't usually take to people very well. She must like you." I took that comment to just be something that the owner would say to make the guest feel welcomed and special so I said in return somewhat humorously "I bet Sunshine does that to all the guys." Greta said, "no I'm serious, walk over to that tree (about 50 ft away) and let's see what Sunshine does." I did that, and Sunshine followed me over. I walked back over to where Greta and my wife were standing and again, Sunshine quickly came to me. At this point she started climbing on me, picking at my clothing and tried to pull a small wart off my arm. My wife who had once had a cockatiel said that Sunshine was "grooming me! When I tried to hand off Sunshine to the others, she wouldn't have anything to do with it and would squawk and hop back to me.
I see this is getting long and I'll try to conclude soon but want to say that I tried "testing" Sunshine. I thought she might be attracted to my shirt or my
touristy shell necklace or wedding band or something else, but when I changed clothing and removed the jewelry she still reacted the same. Her favorite thing seemed to be to sit on my shoulder and kind of "hum" in my ear.
There were other things that happened that were similar to the above that I could go into but the weird thing to me is that I didn't feed her or give her anything and she reacted in this, should I say, loving way.
As you can imagine this was quite an extraordinary, probably once in a lifetime experience for me. And I'd like to know from some veteran parrot companions if they have ever seen something like this and why a complete stranger might get selected as their person.
Thank you so much
This is my first post so excuse me if I make mistakes as I'm not used to this format.
I have a question that I'll be brief with but will have more elaboration after the question for those who want to read further.
Question: Has anyone had any experience with an adult Macaw immediately bonding to a person upon first meeting and wants little or nothing to do with others?
Elaboration: My wife and I were vacationing on the Big Island and stayed at a B&B that had a large mango tree with about a dozen or so parrots of different types living there in what seemed to be a semi-enclosed environment. Our first morning we walked down to look at the birds and immediately a red Macaw, named Sunshine hopped over to me and started being friendly. The "bird compound" had a lot of ropes and wood connecting some of the smaller trees with the big mango so the birds did a lot of walking around as well as flying up into the heights of the mango.
As I started interacting with Sunshine, the owner of the B&B, (I'll call her Greta) saw us and shouted out "Be careful, she just bit the girl who was feeding her this morning." I backed away a little when I heard that but Sunshine immediately inched toward me. Greta came down where I was standing with my wife and Sunshine and said "That's unusual, she doesn't usually take to people very well. She must like you." I took that comment to just be something that the owner would say to make the guest feel welcomed and special so I said in return somewhat humorously "I bet Sunshine does that to all the guys." Greta said, "no I'm serious, walk over to that tree (about 50 ft away) and let's see what Sunshine does." I did that, and Sunshine followed me over. I walked back over to where Greta and my wife were standing and again, Sunshine quickly came to me. At this point she started climbing on me, picking at my clothing and tried to pull a small wart off my arm. My wife who had once had a cockatiel said that Sunshine was "grooming me! When I tried to hand off Sunshine to the others, she wouldn't have anything to do with it and would squawk and hop back to me.
I see this is getting long and I'll try to conclude soon but want to say that I tried "testing" Sunshine. I thought she might be attracted to my shirt or my
touristy shell necklace or wedding band or something else, but when I changed clothing and removed the jewelry she still reacted the same. Her favorite thing seemed to be to sit on my shoulder and kind of "hum" in my ear.
There were other things that happened that were similar to the above that I could go into but the weird thing to me is that I didn't feed her or give her anything and she reacted in this, should I say, loving way.
As you can imagine this was quite an extraordinary, probably once in a lifetime experience for me. And I'd like to know from some veteran parrot companions if they have ever seen something like this and why a complete stranger might get selected as their person.
Thank you so much
