Ellis - a cute, little white spectacled amazon, came to our home this past thursday (October 11, 2007) with his bigger friend Herkimer. He has shown no aggression or fear towards my husband or myself. He just looks very calm and contented all the time. We will keep an eye on this - just because birds that are laid back when you would think they should be a bit fearful, it may be a sign of an underlying illness.

But so far, Ellis is great. He steps up very nicely on a handheld stick for both of us. we have not yet tried to have him step up on to our arms yet...i just want him to be more settled first. i may try during the next few days.

When he came to us, he also had full use of his wings - which means his wing feathers were not clipped. we did this today for his own protection. Ellis, however, is a very good flyer. He landed nicely on his target perch without a hitch.

Ellis was brought up on a parrot mix - seeds, nuts, dried fruit. He doesn't eat much pellets. I have been giving him his parrot mix and mixing in some zupreem fruit blend pellets, and I have actually seen him biting on the zupreem pellets. i will take the conversion slow, but that is a good sign.

below are some great pictures of Ellis that we have taken so far.

ps: don't let the last image fool you. Ellis really knows how to handle Herk, and Herk would never hurt Ellis - thus far, anyway. we do keep an eye on both when out of their cage.