Makana playing with a feather and looking cute as always :)
Makana is a video chat-bomber.
“I’m sorry, were you trying to see each other? Because I believe the main focus of attention here is me”
Another green-cheek with a blog! Hooray!
Mr. Pineapple is a pineapple green cheek conure that is a little bit flighty with humans and here we will map the journey of taming him. He doesn’t bite and if needed he does allow you to grab him around his back but when just trying to get him to step up he started out jumpy. We have only had him for 24hrs and he is already improving and now will allow you to put your hands near him inside his cage and also rub his head and back. So we will be just working with that the next few days until we move on to step ups. He is a very sweet baby and a great addition to our family, so we hope you enjoy following his journey as much as we will.
Makana loves star anise.
“Why doesn’t Makana look like any Green Cheek Conure I’ve ever seen?”
Any time spent with Makana, and you’ll know that she is a very special little lady. But even personality aside, really, she is.
Makana has a mostly light grey head, save for a splash of matcha powder green on her face, and silver cheeks. Her belly is silver but still has a bit of peach towards her feet. She has orange epaulettes. Her wings are a mossy green with hints of turquoise, and her primary flight feathers are electric blue. Her underwings and pants are seafoam that gradually turn baby blue the higher up her body you go. Her tail is a kind of reddish desert sand color that you’d probably find in the Grand Canyon.
Makana is a Pineapple-turquoise Green Cheek Conure. “Pineapple-Turquoise” is her mutation (a “mutation” in this case being a naturally occurring, spontaneous coloring found in nature) and “Green Cheek Conure” is her species. Her mutation is a combination of basically every conure mutation out there (she’s visually Turquoise, Cinnamon, and Yellow-Sided), and is quite rare. I don’t think anyone expected her to come out this way - Her siblings were visually “normal” GCCs, but it seems her parents had non-visual recessive genes.
Her mom was probably Pineapple or Yellow-Sided with recessive non-visual Turquoise genes, and her dad was probably some combination of Pineapple and Turquoise. The chances of getting each of her parents in specifically that combination of mutations is something like one in 16, and if you pair those specific two parents, the chances of getting Makana’s Pineapple-Turquoise mutation is one in 11. (You’re welcome to do the math.)
When I first met Makana, I didn’t know GCC mutations very well and I didn’t know how rare or strange her coloring was - I really just fell in love with her personality. As Ben and I came down to crunch time of whether we’d really take her home or not, I did some research and ended up confused because I couldn’t figure out what she was. I asked and confirmed it for myself, and learned about all of this, but neither the store nor I really understood or cared for how rare her mutation is. So as nice as it is that our extra special baby is more extra special than I could have imagined, I’m happy to say that she was not intentionally bred for her colors, nor was she brought home for them :)
(Source: midoriw)
We’ve been keeping this secret for a week now, and it’s been so hard not to spill the beans - We just didn’t want to say anything until everything was in place. Now it’s time!
Last week, we walked into a wonderful exotic pets store on the Upper West Side to ask about Parrotlets and Green Cheek Conures (both known as quiet, well-behaved apartment birds). They didn’t have any parrotlets, but in a little black cage outside the main aviary was this little fluffball - A Pineapple-Turquoise Green Cheek Conure.
Though we were initially leaning towards a parrotlet for various reasons (we were mostly just wary of how quiet a Conure could really be), we noticed immediately how calm and well-socialized this one was. We met her, played with her, and were utterly smitten. After many hours of consideration, we spent the whole next day with her, and ended up putting down a deposit.
We finally picked her up yesterday, and went on a great little road trip (which we’ll write about another time - lots of cute pics!). Now she’s in Boston with Midori, spoiled rotten in a huge cage with lots of treats and toys while she waits for Ben to return in September.
Her name is Makana, Hawaiian for “gift”. (However, she remains unrelated to this Laysan Albatross in Monterey Bay.)
We’ve created a separate blog for all things Makana because otherwise we’ll just fill up our personal blogs with bird photo after bird photo. If that’s your idea of fun, please follow The Firetail Diaries (named so because she’s of the pyrrhura genus, which means “firetail” in Latin) and check back for updates on the life and times of our little lady!
Ben & Midori
