NATE....THEY CAN MAKE WONDERFUL PETS. THE ONLY THING THAT I FIND DIFFERENT ABOUT HAWKHEADS COMPARED TO SOME OTHER PET BIRDS IS THAT THEIR MOVEMENTS TEND TO BE VERY QUICK AND THAT CAN MAKE SOME PEOPLE NERVOUS.

I HAVE 2 OF THEM AS PETS.

Got any pics? We all love seeing photos of everyone's birds. :) Please!

Yes, pictures would be awesome! How old are your hawkheads, Julie?

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA

My male is about 7 or 8 years old. He is a multiple previou owned adult bird to me. His name is Kojo. He is a wonderful pet most of the year. He talks, gives kisses, and loves to play. However he also came with a history. He had been kept in a large macaw size cage, one finch size perch, and one finch size toy. He was being fed wild bird seed and had 6 round halagen lights mounted in the canopy that fit over the cage and were shining on him all day long. According to the previous owner, he looked really beautiful under all that light.

When I asked the lady I got him from, how long he had being plucking his feathers, she did not realize he was plucked. She said he had looked like that ever since she got him. She had him 3 years. She said she was really concerned that he go to someone who understood hawkheads. She was moving and had to sell him ( thank godness )

I got him in a cage that has appropriate bar spacing for him, lots of different sizes and types of perches, lots of toys, and a good diet.
Hawkheads require more fruit in their diet than some other species.
He was fully feathered and beautiful and then breeding season hit. He plucked the feathers on his chest, back and under his wings and on his legs. Now he looks like he did when I got him. He has also become very agressive if he is around other birds, but when away from them is still fairly nice.

Either way, since he came from multiple owners, he will now stay with me no matter how he looks or acts. I know he can be loving and when he wants to be, he gets plenty of it.

My female is 3 years old and she was trained to be a show bird for Tani Robars trained parrots. She is now just a pet bird for me.
She is a lot of fun, she loves to play and when she is in the mood she will dance and show off for hours. She has her people she likes and dislikes and I am never sure about the dislikes ( why). She is also a very good talker.

I enjoy both of them very much as individual birds with individual personalities and quirks.

Thanks Julie. I always have to ask about ages when people tell me how sweet their birds, because if the bird is less a year old, well, of course it's well behaved. :-) But at 3 and 7 I'm sure you have a pretty good picture of what hawkheads are really like.

I know what you mean about fast head movements too, my cockatoo whips his head around a lot and it makes my girlfriend really nervous. They're getting used to each other though. :-)

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA

Sorry I still don't have pics to post, but if you want to see xena my hawkhead at the height of her career, you can go to the web site of her previous owner. http://www.parrottricktraining.com/birds/xena.html