A scarlet macaw adopted Saturday by The River Pizza and Subs in Boulder needs a name — and owner Greg Hughes is inviting kids to provide it.
Actually, Hughes said she came from the Montana Parrot Rescue with a name — Scarlet — but that’s like naming a dog “Dog,” he said in an interview.
The naming contest runs for a week beginning Friday, May 10 and is open to kids 12 and under. The creator of the winning name will win a $25 gift card to the restaurant.
The bird’s new home — a spacious cage next to the restaurant’s game room — is a welcome change for the bright but battered bird. She’s missing a lot of her breast feathers and some from her tail, having pulled them out “due to her less than positive environment that she was in [previously],” Hughes wrote in a Facebook post.
Her feathers will grow back but it could take a year, he wrote.
“She will require several months to adjust to her new environment,” he wrote. “She has had a rough past but we are determined to bring her back to a great life she deserves.”
This isn’t the first time The River has been home to a bird. Hughes previously owned a male African grey parrot named Kiko for 30 years until it died in February of 2018, he said.
Like Kiko, macaws thrive on attention.
“Feel free to communicate and visit with her as much as you want,” Hughes wrote on Facebook. “She loves to play “peek-a-boo,” [and] she will tell you goodbye when you leave and say hello as well.”
A vet determined that the macaw is about 30 years old — captive macaws can live for 75-80 years — and blind in her right eye, Hughes said.
Warned not to handle her because she could be aggressive, Hughes said within the first 24 hours she was already approaching him and walking up his arm step-by-step for a head rub.
She also has a vocabulary of several words that he is trying to learn, he said.
Whatever name is chosen for her, Hughes hopes she becomes as much a fixture in the restaurant as Kiko was.
“She was never around many people, so this environment will be very new to her and it will take some time [for her to settle in],” he said. “But I believe she will love her new home and very much enjoy all the attention she will get.”
