Aurora, the Tinkerbell
Aurora is a little Yellow fronted kakariki hen, hatched in early summer 2001. She is the youngest among our parrots. Unlike Kiwi and Tovi, she has a petite beak matching to her small head. She flies like a butterfly. Appearances can be deceptive though. Since she joined our flock, our Kakariki landscape was upturned. After a couple of mid air fights, during which Tovi's feathers were shed, Tovi was ousted from the top position. A new ruler arrived. The smallest Aurora now reigns supreme. As usual, Kiwi volunteered to be a feeding slave, and his offer was readily accepted. During flying time, Tovi has to avoid her carefully. Kiwi and Tovi are not only victims of her temper.  To our horror, she has bitten the toe of our African Timneh Grey, Scooter, when he landed on her cage. She has nothing to be scared of.  We are worried and make every effort to avoid a conflict. 
The reason why we purchased a hen Yellow fronted.
In spring 2001, we decided to purchase a young Yellow fronted normal hen. I thought that a companion would improve the quality of Tovi's life. I have searched for local breeders for months in vain; less Yellow fronted Kaks were bred and even less normal Yellow fronted Kaks were bred. Finally I dug out an advertisement from an old issue of the Parrot Society UK magazine. We contacted the breeder, and found out that he was Kiwi's breeder ( We bought him from a pet shop).  After a long wait, we were offered three hens at the age of about 12 weeks old, to pick from: two normal and one lutino with black eyes. Mike preferred the lutino, and I liked all, but I really wanted to buy a beautiful green hen.  One normal showed pied gene, and Mike asked me to choose one, so I chose the normal hen with solid coloured feet. That was Aurora. 

We quarantined her in the lounge. She didn't know how to fly properly; she had never flown in such a large space. She fluttered so hard that she would repeatedly hit the ceiling. Her landing was also awkward. When she wanted to stop, she had to cling to the curtains or the pelmet. She couldn't regulate even flapping to fly smoothly. She flew like a butterfly.  Within weeks, she mastered how to turn, how to land properly and also understood that she had to go back to the cage when we asked. 

 
Landing on the pelmet
After the quarantine, she was gradually introduced to Kiwi and Tovi. They already knew each other's existence since they called each other. Under supervision, three were let out together. After battles over hierarchy, everyone seemed to settle to their new ranks. 

 A Salad Girl
Aurora is a smart  bird; quick to understand and showing interest in almost everything. She plays with anything I have given, which is different from our Kakariki boys. She especially loves something she can chew. Her current favourites are pine cones and a willow basket. She spends hours shredding them.

She is a real salad girl. She likes vegetables most, but not so keen on dry seeds. Because of this, I give her more fresh vegetables than the others. Sometimes a twig of rosemary or nutritious weed are given as an extra. She happily and hastily picks each leaf. A fig plant became the first causality of her love of greens;  Here is the photo as evidence. She also shows her talent in home improvement. Unfortunately her taste is somewhat wilder than mine.

 
Like all Kakarikis, she loves bathing. She insists on bathing first, even when there is already someone in the bathtub. Her flashing eyes force the unfortunate bather away, then she enthusiastically washes herself until she becomes too heavy to fly well. After that she hides in her tunnel house that she created on top of a pelmet board. 

At this moment Mike is making a stainless steel filled indoor flight for her and her companion. It will be 1.2 m x 0.6 m x 1.8 m H ( 4' x 2'x 6' ). When we decided to buy a hen, we promised to each other that one boy, be Tovi or Kiwi,  would  have to share a new cage with her.  No more additional cages in our house!  At this moment, Kiwi is the likely candidate since Tovi is afraid of her too much. I will let you know how things work out. 

So this is how she came to our house and how she settled.  She always reminds us of Tinkerbell, you know, the wicked bossy little fairy in Peter Pan.