Showcase: Singapore Domestic Flying Parrots

Founded in November last year by Ian Tan (pictured), Anthony See and Shermalyn Tham, the group is completely free to join, and you can join in even if you don’t have a parrot of your own. We went to a Sunday meeting in a small park beside a block of Serangoon HDB flats, attended by 20-30 people and almost as many parrots, ranging from tiny to big and from monochrome to multi-coloured. We met a parrot who could sing ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ and a cockatoo named Angelo who sat on our shoulders drinking orange juice from a carton and saying ‘I love you’. We were also impressed by one of Ian’s tricks in which he points gun fingers at the parrots and they flop over, playing dead. But the group’s raison d’être is letting these beautiful birds fly, borne from a belief that parrots shouldn’t always be locked in cages. The birds flew through hoops and up into the surrounding trees and onto lighting posts; at one point, some of the owners took their parrots up to the top storey of the HDB flats and let them fly down. There are often also rescued parrots there from the Animal Resort at Seletar West Farmway – Angelo was an example on our visit, along with a blind cockatoo who had been severely neglected by her previous owners.

For more information, see www.sdfp.org. To feed rescued parrots, go to the Animal Resort every Saturday from 1.30-5.30pm. Seletar West Farmway 5 (6338 7665).