This is part three of an ongoing feature on Abbotsford pets with remarkable followings on Instagram. If you have a pet that you feel should be featured, send an email to sports@abbynews.com.
Account name: @pepper_birdie
Animal type: Bird
Followers: 388
Posts: 94
Q: When did you get your pet?
A: My husband and I got the pet back in February 2017. He grew up taking care of many budgies during his childhood and decided to get back into being a bird owner again. We did quite a bit of research as we were hoping to get something more interactive than a budgie. We decided on a conure because they are described as “the clown” of the parrot world. Plus, we were hoping to teach it to talk and to do simple tricks to impress our friends and family. After doing our research, we found our baby birdie at Pet Lovers in Abbotsford and after taking it home, it didn’t take very long for Pepper to bond with us. In about a month and a half, we’ll be celebrating Pepper’s third Hatch-Day. We’re planning on building him a beautiful perch as a present!
Q: Why did you decide to start the Instagram account?
A: We decided to start the Instagram account because we realized that there is a whole community of bird parents out there. We liked all the pictures and videos we saw of other conures and enjoyed being able to peek into their day-to-day activities. We wanted to join this online community and share the cute and laughable moments of our birdie’s life with other bird parents out there. Although our friends and family enjoyed the pictures and videos we shared on our personal accounts, they just didn’t understand our joy and pride at the playfulness that was our bird, such as knocking things off tabletops and counters, or learning to fly. With other conure owners online, there is a sense of belonging and understanding amongst us; it’s nice to feel like a part of something positive in the online world.
Q: What do you think makes the account so popular?
A: Pepper_birdie is so popular because we enjoy making people happy. We always post pictures and videos of Pepper that we know will make people smile or laugh along with us. We enjoy putting a variety of pictures up of him playing with little bowling pins, or taking a bird bath in a bowl of cherries that are being washed, or impressing others with his toilet training. There’s also all those food pictures! They’re popular among the humans and the birds apparently! In addition, Pepper, being a yellow-sided green cheek conure, has such vibrant colours that the first thing that anybody ever says about our bird is how beautiful he is with all of his colours. Taking an artistic shot with him is such an easy task because of the way his colours pop in a picture. He’s just one beautiful bird and you can’t deny that fact!
Q: What do you want to achieve with the account?
A: We just want to make people laugh and smile. We like showing him off in pictures and videos online. We also want to reach 500 followers, and eventually 1000 followers, and continue being an active member in the online community of bird parents.
Q: What is your favourite part of running the account?
A: Our favourite part is looking for all the ways our birdie makes us laugh and smile and trying to capture those moments on camera for our Instagram followers, whether they be friends, family, or strangers. Above all, we just love being able to spend time bonding with and loving our bird and allowing others to share in this experience of bird ownership with us.
Author’s note – Responses were generated by Shyen, a co-owner of the bird.