'My parrots are the squawk of the town'

Cover of "The flight of Cornelius Cockatoo by Stewart Metz1997 was a turning point in the life Dr. Stewart Metz. Until then, he had followed the typical route for a physician practicing Medicine in the university setting—seeing patients; doing research in Diabetes; teaching; and Administrative work. Eventually he became Head of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes as a Tenured Physician at the renowned University of Wisconsin-Madison, with about 130 research publications under his belt. But he sensed, increasingly, that something important was missing—and that ‘something’ was parrots. In 1993, he recognized that passion, which grew by leaps and bounds with the acquisition of China, a very special Salmon-crested cockatoo (Cacatua moluccensis). But in 1997, when he turned to the then-fledgling Internet, he found only a striking paucity of knowledge about these cockatoos, which were endangered in the wild. So in 2000, he became a member of the Indonesian Parrot Project (originally called “Project Bird Watch”) and in 2002 became the Director of the project. This NGO is a small, all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of endangered Indonesian parrots, including the Salmon-crested cockatoo.
The cosy fleece outfits were invented by Yvonne MacMillan, who also designed little leg warmers for her chilly creatures.
And she even created a cuddly corset for one distressed cockatoo to keep him warm and stop him pulling his feathers out. Yvonne, 49, who runs Scotland's only parrot sanctuary on the island of Kerrera, near Oban in Argyll, said: "The cold weather has been a nightmare.
Ruffled - um - feather: Oscar the bald Moluccan cockatoo peers curiously at the camera from her Florida home
Sadly for Oscar, her answer to 'Who's a pretty boy' is - well - not her.