Coco and Charlie

Coco is a beautiful Yellow Nape Amazon. The yellow nape is said to be the "cadillac" of the Amazon parrots. Known for their incredible vocal qualities, the Yellow Nape is able to most closely achieve human vocal qualities. They are also known for their intelligence and ability to understand and use language appropriately. Coco has been a member of our family since she was a tiny baby in pin feathers! Her ability to talk is amazing and she has a gorgeous singing voice, too. Coco is twenty years old now. Coco continues to be a sweet, gentle soul, always polite and a little serious. She is an adult parrot now! Fully of age! She will probably be able to continue breeding until she is in her 40's. With good care, Coco could well live to be 65-80 years of age, and maybe longer.

Coco is a romantic at heart, and she has a love in her life! Her love is Charlie, a 20 year old male Blue Front Amazon. Charlie came to my parent's house when he was also a young bird. He is a beautiful bird, and a very intelligent guy who is also an excellent talker. He is a clown and an attention hog. Even though Coco is probably the more talented of the two, he manages to steal the show every time through his big ego!! He came to be a pet, but he and Coco had other ideas. It was almost love at first sight and they have been together since they were around 8 years of age. The first few years that they had eggs, the eggs were broken, we think Charlie did it in his efforts to protect the eggs from danger. My parents finally took the eggs out of the nest box and hatched two babies in an incubator.

On June 20, 1999 Jolly was hatched in the incubator! Jolly was a big baby from the very beginning. She found a special place in my brother, Todd's heart, and she lives with him as a best friend and confidant!

In 2000, Kermit was hatched! Kermit now lives with a woman named Maxine, where he is much loved. Maxine had an Amazon that she had known since she was a little girl, when its owner died, she adopted the parrot and had him the rest of his life. When he died at around 65 years of age, she was just lost without him. She was so happy to find Kermit and fill the empty place her lifetime friend had left behind.

In 2003, Coco and Charlie came to live with us in Denison, Iowa when my mother's health prevented her from keeping her birds. Coco and Charlie are members of the family!!

In 2004, they hatched out two eggs without any difficulty! Java and Kiwi were handfed from the first day when Coco was unable to figure out how to feed them. I had always wanted a baby Amazon that I could raise from hatching and teach to talk! I have to admit that I totally fell in love with these two babies and I knew that I could never part with them! So Java and Kiwi are my pets, and a real blessing to me. But I know that I cannot keep any more babies, no matter how tempting that would be. These birds deserve and need more attention than I could give more. Especially since Coco and Charlie have been having a new batch of babies every year.

In 2005, she hatched one egg, Lola. Lola now belongs to Jenna out east in Virginia.

And last year, in 2006, she hatched and raised, Sunny. Coco definitely figured out how to feed her babies now, and did an excellent job with Sunny! I've got lots of pictures and will be sharing them as I am able to locate pictures!! Sunny lives with Connie in Arizona and thinks that she died and went to bird heaven!

And that is all of our happy family so far!!