~~Sierra Sunrise~~My White Capped Pionus~~

[Nakia]

So I was shopping in my local small pet shop the day after Christmas this past Dec and I should not have stopped by the bird area~~Yep, wrong thing to do! I see this cute little all green except for her head bird. I make the mistake of asking the young salesman to take this little cute green bird out and he hand her to me. She is not exactly hand tame, but she is cute, different and I'm in the mood to buy myself an after Christmas present.

Soooo, I plunk down the price for her & then ask if they can hold her for a couple of hours til we finish shopping? The salesman, who by the way already knows me and knows I'm a sucker for his showing me critters in this particular shop keeps trying to sell me a cage as well. I tell him I already have plenty cages, but in reality I didn't have the funds to get a nice cage they sell since they are so pricy there. We go on our way to Walmart to shop, I buy a dog carrier to put her in for the ride home, get back to the pet shop and the salesman puts her in and I gleefully head home with my only "Spur Of The Moment" bird I have not counting several of the budgies.

I have an old Chinchilla cage that works fine to temporarily house this little green fluff that was 4 1/2 months old at the time. She was timid, but allowed me to scratch the back of her head and settled in fairly well. Once she settled in she became a different bird I tell you. She doesn't care to be held except when she is jealous of me taking to another bird and will bite the fool out of your finger. Pionus have a strong beak for a smaller parrot and she means business with that beak! She has the temperament of an Amazon and I have read they are sometimes referred to as a mini Amazon even tho they are a totally different species. I still offer my hand for her to come out daily, but most times she just goes to the other side of the cage and sometimes will come out on the play perch if I push it to her door. I was going to buy her a new cage that was more to her size when Peta died. So I took 3 weeks before I could clean out Peta's cage. It was just comforting to me to walk past it the way it was when she was alive and pretend she was just hiding in her snuggle hut. I did clean it and gave it to Sierra~~til I found Serita and decided to get Sierra a new cage again.

OK so last month I decided to give my last 6 snakes and my 2 tortoises to an ex coworker and her hubby who are raising their 2 grand nephews. They love snakes and I needed the space for my growing birdhouse. Well little did I know that giving them the snakes would in turn get me a couple of small, but sturdy cages the lady had sitting around after her Dad died. he used to keep African Greys and although these cages alone were not large enough for Sierra and certainly not large enough for a Grey, I still was able to us them by combining the two. Now Sierra has a 24X44X60 cage and she seems to love it. These were some of her first photos.

Folks I give you~~Sierra Sunrise~~My White Capped Pionus~~

[Nakia]

So here are some more recent photos of Sierra Sunrise, A.K.A.~~Ewok! She & I have this game where she is screaming EeeWOK and I scream back EeeWOK and I swear if someone were to be peeping in my window they would call the little men in white jackets to come pick me up. Now this Ewok scream is like long eee, then raise your scream about 5 octaves higher and you've got how it sounds when we are gleefully screaming our sweet nothing to each other.

Actually I started calling her my little Ewok cause she sounds like one when she talks with that garbled gravely voice. I have taught her so far to say, Ewok wants out, Ewok go night night, Ewok bad, I love you, smoochy sounds followed by, I love you and a few things I can't figure out yet. She is a riot to have around, my temperamental mini Amazon imposter!

I got her name from the colors on her. She reminds me of a fir tree with snow piles on the green branches, with the sunrise coming up (her inner tail is red) and blue skies peeking through the tree branches.

[Ditty]

awwww she is so adorable.  I think they are great birds, at least the ones I have known.   That is great she is talking with you and engaging now.  Happy and content!   

[steptoe91(tozie)]

wow what a beautiful birdie!    she sounds like she's a real firecracker, tho. 

now i dont know much bout  pionus parrots, are they south american  birds? about how big is she?

[Debra]

I love how she always seems to be smiling! In some of those pics she looks like she's plotting something with an evil grin on her face.  She's just too cute!

[Nakia]

Thanks Toz & Deb. Sierra is a firecracker, she even looks like a tiny Zon in shape.  Pionus are from South America and there are 5 species with 3 regularly kept as pets. The Maximillion, the Blue Headed and the White Capped or in some parts of the country they are called White Crowned. The White capped is the smallest of the species and is around 9 to 11" from tail to head, not a really big bird and certainly not nearly as large as the smallest Amazon usually kept as pets. The largest is the Maximillion at 13 to 15".

I had never seen one in person before the pet shop and really didn't know a darn thing about them before bringing her home. I think the mystery of it being something totally different than I am used to was the attraction. But I would miss this little stink now and she is bonded to me, she loves for me to be close by and calls for me when I leave the room. She just isn't a hands on bird. It is a trait of the pionus to not be a cuddly bird and I have plenty of cuddlers, so I am not hurt by it at all. :twirl:

[Sapphire]

Sierra Sunrise is adorable  :heartu: I absolutely love Pi's 

[JudiNH]

She's a beauty! And she sure does look like she is just packed with personality.  :)

[Nakia]

Thanks Wendy and Judi. She is packed full of personality for such a little stink!!

Her favorite saying other than EeeeWOK is , "Ewok want OUT!!"  I think she associates me with the word Ewok as if to her that is MY name!