Home

My name is David Heyden and I live at St Lucia in Brisbane, Australia. My interest in birds started at a very young age. My father is a vet and aviculturist, so it was easy to follow in his bird keeping footsteps.  I have a lot of early memories of pestering my father in the early hours of Saturday morning as I perused the back pages of the weekend shopper to see the “poultry, birds and fish” listings. Very little has changed over the years, only now I pester the “wife”.

My first birds were finches and budgies, keeping a number of Zebras, Cubans and Gouldians.  I  moved onto Cockatiels when I was in my adulthood.  A friend of ours wanted to get rid of a pet Cockatiel, a normal hen. This one bird started the ball rolling and the rest, they say, is history.

In recent years, I have starting keeping King parrots.  I started with a number of young pairs, so breeding success is limited at this stage.  They are a non-aggressive bird, so during the off season, I flock the Kings and Cockatiels together with no trouble.

I am a member of the Australian National Cockatiel Society and the Parrot Society of Australia.