Dave's first Project Bird! (Patreon)

Yes, you read that right. And if you were on last month's live chat you already know the big news! (Yay for live chat perks!) 

If you feel like you recognize this bird or this image, it's because this macaw was featured in a story I did about a hoarding situation: SAVE THE PARROTS where I was helping to raise money and awareness for two parrot rescues: Ronie's For the Love of Birds and SWEAR. 

When COVID-19 hit, our magic business pretty much stopped dead in its tracks. It was one of those blessings in disguise for us because Dave has struggled with back problems and pain his entire life and although we've sought help here and there, we've never been able to get him consistent help from the same doctors on a regular basis because of our travel schedule. Being home allowed for that for the first time since he was about 21 years old. In the midst of his treatment, he felt more helpless than ever before (he was receiving treatment for his back daily, and was not allowed to go on walks for more than 15 minutes at a time at its worst point.) 

During this, he reached out to Ronie's Rescue as they were struggling with being bombarded with even more birds due to the lack of understanding at the time and they were also hit with the restrictions of not being able to adopt out any birds whatsoever. They had just taken on the birds from the hoarding situation and had committed to another building for the proper quarantine measures... so they were under a lot of stress. Many of you may remember we held a fundraiser for them but Dave wanted to do more. 

So he asked Ronie's, "Which bird is your WORST case? Which bird has zero chance of being adopted right now?" 

And as soon as the Idaho/Utah borders opened up, Dave went to get him. Sunny is a blue and gold macaw that came from that hoarding situation, and is probably the first project bird we've worked with with severe anxiety. 

I will be sharing behind the scenes videos here on Patreon of Sunny's journey (a deeper look into the struggles and how we overcome them) as well as photos, and you will also be the first to see Sunny's videos before they are posted on YouTube. Dave will be doing all the training with Sunny, and documenting of it. There's no real schedule for the production of it, it'll just come out as it gets done on Dave's end (Dave's editing style takes much longer to produce content than mine!) 

But I wanted you guys to be the first to know about Sunny so we can start sharing tid-bits with you all (Bondi tier and above). 

Oh, and he has a butcher of a wing clip and appears to pluck due to his anxiety. To our knowledge he has not flown but does not necessarily lack all the muscles to do so (he can be seen often holding his wings up) so we are hopeful flight will someday be in his future. 

Looking forward to sharing his transformation with you! Happy June, thanks for being a patron and supporting projects like Sunny. He will likely be a long-term project bird because of how much he has to overcome. It's because of your support here on Patreon that we can even consider a long term project bird, so thank you so much.