Hi guys.  Welcome back to Animal Wonders.  This is Scarlet the green wing macaw.  I love showing off all of the animals that we have here.  I like giving them their own videos so you guys can learn all about them, so today, we're just gonna talk all about Scarlet.

(Intro)

Scarlet is pretty nervous right now.  One of the main reasons that I can tell that she's nervous is that her feathers are very fluffed up right now.  That's a clear indication that this is very new to her and different.  She's trying to comfort herself by doing some self-grooming there.  

Let's talk about why she's here at Animal Wonders.  She's about 28 years old and she's had two previous owners.  The first owner had her for just over 20 years and I'm not sure why he decided to give her up, but he did, gave her to a family that is quite large, and she had a really fun time.  She was quite fond of the dad and the oldest daughter and just, yeah, they got--she got a lot of attention from them. 

The only reason they decided that they could no longer keep her was because their family was going to start doing a lot of traveling, and it wouldn't be fair for Scarlet to live in such a small enclosure on the road.  They had previously seen a presentation from us and they called us up asking if we could possibly take her in and what kind of life that she would lead at Animal Wonders.  

After a lot of discussion, we decided that it would be a good fit.  Our plan for Scarlet was to introduce her to our blue and gold macaw Joy.  Birds do so much better with bird companionship than they could ever do with just humans, so it would be really good for both of them to have each other.  

Scarlet came in with her name and it is a little confusing because she's not a scarlet macaw, there are those guys and they are bright red.  She is a green wing macaw with the name Scarlet.  Scarlet and I are still working on our relationship.  We pretty much trust each other.  We're still working out some kinks and just trying to figure out if we trust each other in multiple situations, like coming into a new room with a lot of lights and cameras, huh?

You can see that she has calmed down now.  Her feathers are no longer floofed up and she's eating just fine.  We've been working on our relationship for a couple months and we've gotten pretty far.  In the very beginning, I let Scarlet just settle in.  It took about a week before she started making some vocalizations and coming over to say hi to me when I came into the room.  

From there, we had to work on just her trusting that I wasn't gonna hurt her, offering her lots of treats.  At first, I had to just drop it in the bowl, but eventually, yeah, she started taking it from my fingers through the bars, and then we got to the point where she would come out on to the top of her enclosure and we could interact from there and we could work from there.  

So once we got there, she started stepping on to my arm.  Now, this is the interesting part is that she didn't know how to step up onto my arm.  She would crawl onto a shoulder but not onto an arm, so that's really what we've been working on for this whole time is, you can stand right on my arm and it's a perfect perch.  

She trusts me enough to take food from my hand in certain situations, but a brand new situation like this, I prefer using the bowl just so that she knows she's completely comfortable and I'm not going to do anything weird with my hand.  If I tried offering her food from my fingers and she wasn't comfortable, there's a chance that either she would just back away from it, or she'd feel nervous enough to try and bite me.  

If I put her in a situation where she felt the need that she had to bite, it'd be setting her up for failure and I never want to do that with a new bird.  Once a bird does bite you, then it's an established behavior that they've done with you before and you really just want to avoid that if you can.  

I am just really happy that she is sitting calmly on my arm and eating in this new room.  This is a new room for her and these are new people in here, huh?  And you've never even seen a big light like this.  You're doing great.

Normally, Scarlet is very vocal and I've been learning that as she's gotten more and more comfortable being at Animal Wonders and being around me.  She does tis little opera thing and she's just saying new little phrases that are--it's just really fun to hear her kinda express her personality.  

Scarlet is doing amazing right now.  She's starting to get full so we're gonna wrap this up but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about our future plans.  Scarlet is going to be introduced to Joy, our blue and gold macaw, and I really hope that they become fast friends.

So the first step we did to introducing Joy and Scarlet was to just let them see each other.  While Scarlet went through her 30 day quarantine period, I would occasionally bring Joy by and they could look at each other through the window.  

The next thing I did was I brought Joy into the room and just kinda hung out, and once Scarlet was stepping onto my arm, I brought her around so that she could see the bird room and all the other birds that she'd be living near.  Joy got used to Scarlet being in the bird room and just being around, and the next step was to have Scarlet move into the bird room, right next to Joy, and that's where we're currently at.  They are getting along living next to each other but not with each other yet.  So far, we've seen no signs of aggression or territory displays.  I think it's gonna work out, guys.

I am really excited to welcome Scarlet into the family of Animal Wonders and I am so excited to see how her and Joy's friendship blossoms.  Scarlet is full, so I'm gonna go ahead and bring her back home and let her relax.  

Thank you for letting me share Scarlet with you guys.  If you'd like to go on an adventure with us every week, subscribe to our YouTube channel, AnimalWondersMontana and I'll see you next week.

(Endscreen/Credits)