The Canadian Parrot Conference - the Aftermath

Last week-end, as mentioned in previous posts, I was at the Canadian Parrot Conference. I had gone the two previous years and had always enjoyed myself. This year was also interesting.

The biggest draw this year was Dr. Irene Pepperberg. I believe anyone who remotely starts plunging in the parrot world knows who she is, or at least knows who Alex the African Grey is. Out of all the talks I attended this year, hers were the most interesting and I barely saw both 45 minutes session go by. Her seminars were about Number Concepts in Grey Parrots and Speech Production in Grey Parrots.

And while I enjoyed Sally Blanchard's seminar entitled "Winning the Trust of a Rehome Parrot", and laughed wholeheartedly at all her stories about Bongo-Marie, a African Grey she once owned, I would have enjoyed it a bit more had there been more information about the actual topic.

As far as the Tradeshow portion of it...compared to the previous years there wasn't much. The room itself in which the Tradeshow is held was cut by half (the other half serving as the conference room) and there were really only two vendors that had a wider selection of toys and the more interesting ones were sold (really) early on. I won't dwell on it, but let's say I didn't spend nearly as much on stuff as I did last year.

There were also a few birds present, amongst them two Hyacinth Macaws that seem to be the biggest draw for the crowd.

Here are a few pictures of the birds present.


The Caique on the sign happened to be this one...


His name was Shorty, he belonged to the couple who owned the Hyacinth Macaws, as well as a Moluccan Cockatoo. Shorty said "Piggy piggy" in the cutest voice. He was also the best behaved Caique I've met in person.


A Brown-head parrot - the only Poi I saw at the Conference.


Parrotlet


Greenwing Macaw


Yellow collard Macaw