This elderly couple, overflowing with love, opens their hearts and home to twenty rescued and neglected parrots. Providing them with a haven and unwavering affection.
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00:00Hello Bella. Hello Bella. Hello Bella. Hello. Hello.
00:11And I've got Billy with me. Billy is an umbrella cockatoo and cockatoos are called love sponges
00:18because they'll take as much as you can give them. And Billy is 20 years old.
00:25The other birds, we've got Kenny at the end, he's the oldest of what we've got, he's 24.
00:35Bella, Bella's a boy. Georgie, the red one, the green one is Millie and the blue and gold at the
00:45end is Charlie. It's hard to say, we started keeping birds about 40 years ago. We started
01:09with two cockatiels and two budgies. We then got, I think we got an African grey,
01:17then we got a couple more and then we realised it was a bit unfair because we were at work all day,
01:24a bit unfair leaving them, so we got rid of those. I was early retired at 49, just 20 years ago,
01:33and that's when we really started collecting birds, taking birds in. Mainly rescues,
01:39one or two of the rarer ones I've gone and bought because it's my lifelong ambition if you like,
01:47but most of them are rescued and they come in for a variety of reasons.
01:52Some of them mishandled, mistreated, most of them come in through ignorance of the owner.
01:58The owner doesn't really know how to look after them, what their actual needs are.
02:09If the main carer dies, then the rest of the family don't want to take the bird on,
02:14so then they'll come in to us in that respect. Other respects, nowadays there's a lot of
02:21moving of people and landlords won't let pets in, although I know that's about to change which
02:28should make life a bit easier, but at the moment landlords won't let pets, so if you've got a pet
02:34and you've got to move house and you want the house, you've got to give your pet up, so they
02:38come in for that reason and some of them come in because they're ill and the people can't afford
02:45the vets bills, so they hand them in to us. Sometimes they'll come in to vets that way,
02:52because they go to the vets first and they can't afford the bill, so the vet hand them in to us.
03:09I think they all have their own personalities, what do you think?
03:12I think so, this one's a bit bossy, this one she's fairly laid back, nothing fazes her, she's
03:21sort of put up with anything, this one's a troublemaker,
03:27yes, looks sweet and innocent but isn't quite so, and this one is the eldest and he's the oldest,
03:34well he's the eldest, oldest and wisest and as long as he's with us he doesn't worry.
03:43It's lovely, you know at the end of the day you see somebody's smile
03:58and you think well I've done a bit good today, made somebody happy.
04:06This problem is it's a good chance for people to see them up close,
04:10because if you go to a zoo they're either in the nest box or right at the back of the cage,
04:14you can't really see their beauty and they're beautiful creatures, so it's nice for people
04:19to actually see them up close and it's lovely, sometimes you know a family will come along
04:25and the kids are obviously very interested in the birds and sometimes I'll take them by the
04:31hand and put a bird on their arm just to watch their smile, it's wonderful, it's a wonderful
04:38experience, yeah.
04:55Good boy.
05:00Hello, hello Bella, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello Georgie,
05:19hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, good girl, good girl.