And they were lucky to find a great home with Susan. Houdini and Melanie’s lives were both made infinitely better when they got to come to the Sanctuary for special care and love when they needed it most. So, not long after she adopted Melanie, she returned to the Parrot Garden to adopt Houdini, too. “Even before I got her home, I was thinking about Houdini,” Susan says. She couldn’t get another shy cockatoo out of her mind. But she had a feeling that something was missing.
#BEST COCKATOO BREEDS FULL#
So Susan took Kaccia home, renamed her Melanie, and gave her a wonderful life full of love, good food and toys. But Susan was willing to just let Kaccia be herself.
She was immediately drawn to Kaccia, because she knew most people want to adopt birds who like people. “I like to adopt the hard-to-place birds, the ones who will probably never find a home of their own,” Susan explains. It looked as though she, too, might be happier alone.īut then Susan Tuck came along, and that led to life-changing consequences for both birds. And, like Houdini, when her caregivers tried to match her up with another bird, she turned her back on them. Like Houdini, she would sit in the back of her enclosure all day, ignoring people. Plus, she’d never had any reason to trust people either. She’d been used for breeding almost her whole life (more than 20 years), and had also lost her mate and was grieving. Meanwhile, Kaccia, a lesser sulfur-crested cockatoo, arrived at the Sanctuary feeling much the same way Houdini did. Since Houdini seemed to have an instant dislike for every other bird he met, it looked as though he might live alone forever. They might become instant friends, they might be friendly but not close, they might barely tolerate each other and sometimes squabble, or they might have an instant mutual distaste for each other.” “Birds are remarkably particular about their relationships,” explains Jacque. But, by acting aggressively during introductions, he made it clear he wasn’t interested in other birds either. “Houdini didn't trust humans, and really had no reason to,” says Parrot Garden manager Jacque Johnson.īecause Houdini wasn’t interested in befriending people, the Parrot Garden caregivers tried to see if he’d bond with another bird. The loss completely shook Houdini’s confidence in people. Although he was rescued and brought to the Sanctuary, sadly, his mate did not survive.
Houdini came to the Parrot Garden several years ago, after he and his mate were abandoned with no food or water. Today they’re a happy pair, but they both went through a lot before finding the happiness they had been without for so long. The two cockatoos stand as close as they possibly can while Kaccia nuzzles Houdini’s pale pink feathers, and he preens her snowy white plumage.