[darkmage3]

Hi all, I am new to the board and have a few questions I am sure you have all heard before, but please bear with me.

I am currently not a bird owner but I want to be. I have been reading books, doing research for 6 months and recently started visiting every store in my area for the last month, I live near Reading, PA. Anyway, I have a daughter who is 5 and she is also very very interested in a bird, so the bird will be mine, but I want to get one that will tolerate her and give her a positive experience.

So here's question 1. Which bird? From everything I am seeing as far as a first time bird, it looks like a conure, tiel, or maybe a meyers or senegal would be a good way to go. The green cheeks seem too small, we kind of want something in the sun, jenday size.

We recently went to a store and I saw a Jenday that is around 6 months old and he is gorgeous. I would run right out and buy him, however, he is very very shy. The store owner could hold him, but as soon as we tried too he flew all over the place to get away. Am I asking for trouble getting this as a first bird? Will it take us a long time (or ever) to acclimate him to us?

I know many folks say the bird should pick you, and we have had that happen, the problem is that the birds that have "picked" us in the store, by coming right over, rubbing, accepting scritches etc, have all been $800 or more, one was a black headed caique, one a meyers, and the other a goffin cockatoo. It greatly scares me to spend over $800 on a first bird when we are so new to this, and that seems pricey for a meyers parrot anyway.

Are there other birds we haven't considered? Should we keep looking a little more until we find that special someone? or maybe i'm just overloaded from too much information.

Any advice would be great.

Thanks,

bob.