Workshop for Sydney - September 11th

I had planned to only present the one workshop in 2011 - my annual gathering at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in December. However, I received a call a few weeks ago from Dr Stacey Gelis at the new Animal Referral Hospital in Sydney with the offer to put on a set of lectures as part of some opening events for the new clinic. It was too good an opportunity to pass up and we have scheduled a really great set of presentation for the delegates to experience. Registrations will be limited so I would recommend that if anyone is thinking about going to get in touch with ARH asap via seminar@arhvets.com to ensure that you don't miss out. Cost is $95 pp (includes morning tea, lunch and the opportunity to tour the new Hospital). The scope of the day will be as follows...

• A 21st Century Approach to Companion Parrot Keeping
• Diet Management for Training & Enrichment of Companion Parrots
• Behaviour Analysis 101 - An Introduction to How Best to Understand Behaviour and Establish Lifelong Relationships with your Companion Parrot
• Non-behavioural Causes of Feather Plucking

There will also be a focused Q&A opportunity at the end of the day. Lunch and coffee break included!

Look forward to seeing you there :-) 

Hobart Companion Parrot Workshop

WOW!!! - What a small but super bird nerd crew we had down there in Hobart, Tasmania this past weekend for a full day of learning about the behaviour, enrichment and training of parrots! I'd like to wholeheartedly thank Lisa Kearney for organising this event - her commitment to providing these opportunities for delivering education on the keeping of parrots to the community is stellar! Thanks also to Lisa's partner Jim (good name that ☺) who was our dedicated `chauffeur' for the weekend and made sure that I got to where I needed to be to teach and have some fun with Hobart's most dedicated parrot keepers - Lisa, Cheryl-Lee, Mark, Michelle, Jill, Joseph, Katherine, Brett & Theresa. Thanks for being such a fantastic and enthusiastic group of students and hanging in there for 7 hours of learning, chatting, networking and fun ☺

Cheryl-Lee and Mark were able to bring 3 of their flock to the workshop for me to do some demonstration work with. `T-Bird' the Blue & Gold Macaw, `Tonka' the Alexandrine, and their newest addition - a gorgeous little Green-cheeked Conure (whose name escapes me - sorry guys!). Some pics of these birds can be seen below this post.

Folks - if you want to experience this day and take your understanding of parrots as companion animals to the next level then please join us at our next workshop event - this time in Melbourne, Victoria! To access details and to register (be quick because we do cap numbers), just get in touch with Lisa Kearney via owner@friendlybirdinn.com.au or drop me an e-mail at jim@pbec.com.au and we'll hopefully see you there. The date set is Saturday April 10th - 9:30am to ~4:00pm. This is the most thorough and comprehensive workshop experience of its kind anywhere in Australia and perhaps the only real `professional development' experience available for parrot owners to enhance their level of knowledge about parrot enrichment and behaviour management.

The very cool `T-Bird' owned by Cheryl-Lee and Mark...

Working with T-Bird on stepping up and down without him using his `beak'...

A very chilled out bird indeed - Tonka the Alexandrine...

Our dedicated workshop participants - hopefully they're all awake in this photo ☺