My apologies to those who read the Macaw forum to which this is old news.
Say hi to Sylvester. He is a 4 year old Red Front Macaw that will be coming to live with me shortly. I had been thinking of a mini-macaw and looking into them, more to take my mind off my sennie than anything else. My reasearch showed Yellow Collared macaws to be a good choice for what I was looking for so just to further distract myself I set about looking for ones that needed a new home. As luck would have it there was one locally. The owner emailed me all the information and then told me he also had a Red Front macaw which I might prefer. I really didnt know but I looked them up and read alot here and indeed they did seem to be a great bird. I decided to go meet them both today and see if one of them was interested in owning me. The YC was badly plucked and not very sociable, he flew away when I approached and really wouldnt come near me. Then came the RF. He was the most amazingly calm and gentle bird I have ever met. He happily let me give him pats on the head and under his wings. Never a complaint, never any sign of fear. When I asked him to step up his foot was in the air before my hand could even get under him.
The owner is a breeder who bought out another aviary and the RF was an unpaired bird he got in the deal. He was selling off all the unpaired birds. He didnt really have a name but the owner was calling him jeffery just so as to have some means of ID. The bird didnt seem to recognize the name as his so I didnt feel bad in changing it. The name sylvester is a wierd little homage to my sennie george. Think to the old sylvester the cat cartoons and his big friend who always called him george "because I cant say Sylvester, george"
If all goes well he should be coming home next weekend. I still miss my sennie and hurt for him, but my home was empty without a fid of my own and my wifes greycie has been noticably lonely so after quarrantine she will hopefully have a new friend.
