Florida Vacation

[DancingGreenBird]

My husband and I went to visit my sister and nephew in Florida for an extended Labor Day Holiday. I've been so busy at work since we've got back that I haven't had time to post about our adventures!

They live in Coral Springs which is next door to Ft. Lauderdale. It was my birthday trip, and in addition to visiting my sister and nephew, I wanted to visit Jungle Island. It used to be Parrot Jungle and I had visited it back in 2001. It has since moved to an island and greatly expanded to include some other animals besides exotic birds.

We had a wonderful time! My husband is still relatively new to exotic birds, so it was great watching him be amazed by many birds he hadn't seen before. They always take pictures of visitors with their birds, and our picture was a hoot. My husband had a GW on his shoulder while I was cradling a Hyacinth and had a B&G on my shoulder who thought it would be funny to grab my sunglasses while the picture was being taken. The picture shows me looking up at the B&G laughing at him holding my glasses. He then dropped them on the Hy, who took it all very stoically.

The Winged Encounters show was wonderful, the parrots are always great, but I have to admit we were most impressed by the cassowary, Mama Cass. She was huge and very impressive in how high she could jump. They claim that she is the only trained cassowary in the world. Apparently, they can be quite dangerous with those claws of theirs, they can deliver a dangerous kick with them.

We visited and fed more parrots than I can count, but there were three that we visited that were special. First we visited a cage with three African Greys. We offered them some treats (Jungle Island provides Zupreme pellets to feed as treats), and the greys came over, but two of them quickly made it clear that they wanted to be petted and scritched instead! Who says greys don't like to cuddle? My husband was entranced. He spent twenty minutes scritching their heads. He is dying for an African Grey now.

The next great encounter was with a cage full of Military Macaws and one Buffon's Macaw. They all came over and wanted to eat all the pellets we had. It was a blast because they would fuss at each other to get to the pellets, but they were pretty good about sharing and letting me feed them each. The Military's were careful not to infringe too much on the Buffon's though! *laugh* But the Buffon's was happy to let me feed the Military's as long as I kept him quickly fed too. We went back and visited these guys twice more. My husband thought it was hysterical that we came all this way and ended up spending a huge chunk of time with the Military's when we have one at home to spoil!

The third encounter is a little embarrassing for me. Since I knew what 90% of the birds were, I wasn't bothering to read the placards, I was just going straight to the side of the cage, interacting with and feeding the birds. I came to the Swainson's Toucan and did the same. Went to the side of the cage and started talking to him. He came right over and checked me out. I wondered whether he would be interested in the pellets, so I held one out to him. To my surprise, he grabbed it right up. He took it in the very tip of his beak, tossed it up and back into his throat. It was very impressive. He was having a lot of fun hopping around for me, coming over to grab more food. They are amazing in how they move around. He was super gentle and dextrous with his beak too. I fed him for a little while and then walked back around to the front of the cage which is when I saw the sign that said "Do not feed. This bird is on a special diet." Ack! I felt terrible and stupid, but now I know why that toucan was so eager to get the pellets, they were probably candy to him. It was the only bird we saw that had that warning. So if you go to Parrot Jungle, don't feed the toucan!

Sherry
P.S. I'll try to post pictures soon. Haven't uploaded them from my camera yet.

[Michelle & Fids]

I'm so jealous, it sounds like a truly wonderful time!!! I can't wait to see the pics.

[Phyllis]

What Michelle said!

[DancingGreenBird]

Here is a picture of the sweet African Grey that my husband fell in love with. And the second is a lovely blue mutation Amazon who was very sleepy.

[DancingGreenBird]

A tree full of Hys and Mama Cass.

[DancingGreenBird]

That beautiful Swainson's Toucan getting an elicit treat. And two macaws hanging out and posing.

[Michelle & Fids]

Wow great pictures, thanks for sharing them with us!!!

[ingrid]

Oh I love Florida

where were these pictures taken?? was it at a park?

Great Pictures, I really enjoyed looking at them

[WingedVictory]

Great pictures, keep on posting them!

gary

[Jessalyn Eaton]

That was fun! We really enjoyed the photos. That Mama Cass is something else! WOW! So funny about your illegal toucan feeding! ha! That would have been me! Oh well, good for him! ha! Tell your hubby he should have just stuck that sweet little grey in his pocket. I would have!