HOPE VALLEY — Like many a first-time parrot keeper, Marc Johnson had little idea what was in store when he got a bird to keep him company while he worked in his pottery studio. Back in 1989, the young artist scraped together $600 and bought a blue-and-yellow macaw. A quarter of a century later, Johnson has given up pottery and runs Foster Parrots, one of the largest wild-bird rescue facilities in the United States. This summer he completed renovations, transforming a chicken farm into a 20,000-square-foot (1,858-square-meter) sanctuary. Filled with nearly 500 screaming, squawking cockatoos, macaws, parrots and a variety of smaller birds such as parakeets, cockatiels and love birds, Foster Parrots is thriving. It fields 900 to 1,000 calls a year from bird owners no longer able to keep their pets. — Reuters
