Lani the Hyacinth Macaw

I am sorry but I choke up whenever I think of Lani. It all began with a phone call, in 2011, from a lady that wanted me to help her feed and water her birds. No problem. I had a volunteer that was a truck driver and had some time to go to this lady’s house to help her. This big burley man called me a few hours later crying and absolutely distraught. He told me that he had walked into a mess, would I please come, immediately.

I talked to the woman for hours until she finally agreed to surrender her birds to me. Time to call for help. Animal control, Dee Wagner from Wing of Love Bird Haven and a couple of my friends were ready to challenge this mess.

I am not telling secrets, the lady is now dead and the house was torn down. It was the worst rescue I have ever encountered and I never want to do another one. The lady was terribly ill and a hoarder. There was a narrow path from the front door to the living room couch, where she slept. Garbage was packed all around her to the ceiling. There was a path that led to an addition where her 35 parrots were housed and three others, including Lani, were in a separate bedroom. The windows were boarded up and the only light the birds had was from one night light. The birds were in stacker cages, with no solid trays separating them. The walls were cover in roaches and other things that moved when I walked in. I found one macaw in a cage with a three foot thick pile of poop under him.

I opened a door to a bedroom and there were three birds in the room, in the filth and dark. Lani was one of them.

When I reach in the cage to get Lani, she slashed at me with her beak and dropped to the bottom of the cage, which was poop coated and rotten, giving way under her weight and she hit the floor. The floor was caked in poop and rotten and gave way too. Lani fell into the sub flooring. She was wild! She was terrified! I waited for her to climb out of the flooring then grabbed a blanket and threw it over her, scooped her up and put her in a dog carrier.

I called for help from friends to bring carriers, I called a vet friend to bring help to the Sanctuary to examine the birds when we got there. And I called my dear loyal volunteers to get cages, food and water setup in the Sanctuary bird house ready to quarantine and treat 38 parrots!

Day 1

The volunteers had set up enough cages for all the birds, the kitchen was ready with seeds, chow, nuts and fresh produce. A table was setup for the two vets to do exams, draw blood and gather cultures on all the birds. They were ready when we arrived and unloaded birds. First they all got bathed and deloused, then passed to a vet to examine and get cultures for the most common communicable diseases. Because they had all been in the dark for years, the vets focused on their eyes looking for any defects. The doctors set the lighting in the bird house low and suggested we raise the light level slowly over the next month or two. Finally they were put in new clean cages and given a hearty healthy meal.

Lani was very aggressive and attacked any attempt to touch her or the cage. Her feathers were rough and dull blue gray. She had been in that room, in that cage since she was a chick, 15 years ago. She had spent her whole life in that house. I try to give the lady the benefit of the doubt that she loved Lani, after all she had paid thousands of dollars to buy her and she had a big cage. But 15 yeas of bird poop had rotted it. Lani wasn’t starving but definitely malnourished. The sunflower seed they were all on caused a different set of nutritional issues.

Months went by, the lights were up and the birds were improving but Lani was not going to have anyone touch her so I call in help. Wendy Craig, now of Arizona, is an exceptional free flight bird trainer and she accepted the challenge to work with Lani. Wendy came to the bird house several times a week and was undeterred when Lani bite, scratched and screamed.

Through much blood letting, Wendy’s, and a great deal of positive reinforcement, Lani learned to trust. She began to be social and loved all the attention. Once she went to schools, and Weatherford First Monday, she went to Oklahoma City and donated a fellow bird and cage to the children center. She became my amazing baby girl that could do anything. Well almost..

Wendy Craig came to the First Monday park with me because she taught her macaws to free fly and come back to her. So she launches her magnificent scarlet macaw in the air and it soars to great heights, it’s an awe inspiring sight and the crowd that gathered loved it. Oooh and ahhh and not to be outdone, I step up the the front of the crowd with Lani. I ask Lani, ” Are you ready to fly?” In her sweet lilting tones she YELLS “NO!”. The crown is silent, the scarlet macaws are really making me mad, flying over head. So I ask her again, “NO!” So I count to three and launch her off my arm. My estimation is 20 to25 feet downward glide until she crash land on her beak! I am humiliated, not really, it was all part of the show. So she straightens up and starts walking toward her perch, I said “Lani, Step UP” She said “NO!” and climber back up her perch and turned her back on me. The crowd loved it! The Scarlet could fly but Lani had personality!