As I sat down for the first time today and looked out of the window, I noticed that the flags were starting to rest too. The bright colourful rainbow fabric sails that flap so wildly during the day also needed to sleep. Sadly, resting will not help the flags to heal: the wind has shredded them this year. Maybe we should get some new ones. It seems to be such a short time since we bought them and proudly put them on display to show people where to find us. So much has happened since that week. In fact so much has happened since our last newsletter that I decided to try and pull it all together, so that others could glimpse the busy life we have here at the World Parrot Refuge.

Larry Neil, one of our special volunteers, erected all the steel piping and chain link fencing in the new Macaw House. He did an incredible job and stretched the fencing really tight. Even with cuts, bruises, and very sore hands he didn’t give up until it was finished. Thank you Larry from all of the humans here at the sanctuary. When the Macaws finally get in there, you will hear the cheers as far away as Victoria!

The newly constructed Macaw House, thanks to Larry Neil and Andy Breslin.

The next step is to get trees and branches for the compounds – especially arbutus. If anyone has some that they don’t want - we will be happy to put it to good use. We have a large number of Macaws all waiting to move into the new Macaw House - but we have to build forests first. We can use fallen trees of all kinds, except cedar. Parrots need to have family roosts to call their own. Each small flock that makes up the larger flock prefers their own special home in the forest.

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Please click on the thumbnails below to learn how you can help some special birds have a home for life through our "Virtual Adoption" program! More stories coming soon!

Birds who are now partly sponsored, thank you!

Birds who are now fully sponsored, thank you!

"This is, in a word, a great place and these miraculous creatures deserve no less, but few places can deliver it this well. It is, indeed, 'world class'."

– Stewart Metz (author and Director of the Indonesian Parrot Project), after his visit at the Grand Opening of the Refuge on August 13, 2005.

"The World Parrot Refuge is a true sanctuary where parrots live out their lives in a loving, spacious and happy environment under the guidance of extraordinarily caring people. The many visitors destined to pass through the refuge will come to understand that parrots are not toys or trophies, but beings with needs and emotions as real as our own."

– Rosemary Low (author of more than 30 books on parrots)