A visit from The Parrot Lady

Local birds and their handler will come to your event

By Jennifer Walleman on July 7, 2011

If you want your child's birthday party to be the talk of the neighborhood, or if you are looking for a unique addition to a wedding or event, you may want to give The Parrot Lady a call.  She and her birds have a few "tricks" up their sleeves.

From the time she was seven years old, Debbie Goodrich had a love for parrots. She graduated form the University of California at Santa Cruz with a degree in Psychobiology, or the study of animal intelligence and cognition. With that knowledge, she became all-knowing of everything parrot.

Goodrich owns six parrots with whom she tours and does presentations: Oly, a 12-year-old greenwing macaw; Jesse, a 12-year-old blue and gold macaw; Rudy, a 12-year old Eclectus parrot; Rico, a 9-year-old blue-fronted Amazon; Cassie, a 21-year-old black capped caique; and Jade, a 14-year-old Nanday conure. To Goodrich, her parrots are not pets; they are members of her family. In her opinion, parrots really don't make good pets.  As part of her presentation, Goodrich tries to inform others of this and also show how to take care of a parrot properly.

"They are members, contributors, of our family," Goodrich said. "They work for a living and play continuously rain, shine, sick, or not. They expect you to be there for them. Yet, they are incredibly adaptable to nearly every environment we throw at them."

And Goodrich throws a lot. Each show is different depending on the audience. Sometimes the show is more informative about conservation, and other times it is more fun, with flying demonstrations, basketball and roller skating, cartwheels, whistling and more.

"Most of the time the primary goal is to emulate all the things people can do through parrots and vice versa," Goodrich said. "That way, people have a unique understanding of all their capabilities to hopefully have more empathy toward a parrots' plight both living with us and that of living in the wild."

Goodrich said that she could not recall ever receiving a complaint about one of her shows. Most of the time people love it and learn something from it.  ‘I had no idea' is the most common phrase she hears, and it's what she enjoys the most. She wants people to understand parrots and debunk common misconceptions about them before purchasing one.

"They are not wild birds," Goodrich said. "Yet, they are not domesticated.  Not even remotely.  The best term I think of is that they choose to do what we ask because they want to.  If we force them, we destroy them or ourselves. So, if you have the time to bring another child into your life - thick and thin, bad and good, then a parrot is right for you."

Cost is typically about $100 per show and $50 per 30 miles traveled. For groups of more than 100 people, cost is $250 per show plus mileage. For more information or to book The Parrot Lady, visit www.parrotlady.com or call (253) 951-4452.