Companion Parrots Re-Homed Hosted Avian Enrichment Workshop for Guardians Feb. 21, 2026

Companion Parrots Re‑Homed hosted an avian enrichment workshop on February 21, 2026, presented in partnership with Phoenix Landing Foundation and led on the program pages by Wendy Whitesides and Michelle from Phoenix Landing Foundation. The event was listed on Companion Parrots Re‑Homed’s events calendar as an "Avian Enrichment" workshop and was explicitly "designed to help parrot guardians build more varied, species‑appropriate, and behaviorally meaningful enrichment."

Program materials and session blurbs carried the practical tone of the day: "Give your parrots something to do and things to think about using some easy enrichment hacks!" and "Make some simple toys using common household items and tweak their setup in simple ways to add variety." Companion Parrots’ event copy invited attendees to "Join Wendy from Companion Parrots Re‑homed and Michelle from Phoenix Landing Foundation as they illustrate ways to create new toys, and update your bird's area, without breaking the bank." Phoenix Landing’s resource pages also record a related webinar: "This video is a recording of the October 18, 2020 webinar on 'Avian Enrichment: Easy DIY Hacks.' It was presented by Phoenix Landing and Companion Parrots Re‑homed."

The Companion Parrots listings name multiple session titles and related offerings, including "Tools for Parrot Problem Solving [...] by Wendy Whitesides" and a separate "Fun with Food Workshop." The Fun with Food description on the Companion Parrots page reads, in full program copy, "This is an on line workshop via MS Teams. Your $10 workshop fee due at sign up.Your kit will include a sprouting mix, a dry mix, and handouts." That Fun with Food entry also contains explicit logistics dated in 2020: "All kits must be ordered/paid by November 14, and picked up at Parrot University by November 18@ Parrot University, 321 S. Polk St., Pineville, NC 28134. First Teams call: November 19@ 7PM:To begin the soaking process for the sprouts." The page further notes, "Shipping is available and is extra. Shipping orders due by: November 14, 2020." Those dates appear to be archival and are presented separately from the Feb. 21, 2026 event listing.

Background material surfaced in Phoenix Landing’s resource library and in a profile of enrichment developer Robin Shewokis. Phoenix Landing highlights historic items such as "'Captive Foraging,' released in 2007, was the first widely available resource on teaching birds to forage in captivity, stressing the importance of foraging." The site also hosts practical examples: "Jenny Drummey's 6 pack toy. Quick homemade enrichment. Pack a 6-pack with shreddables, nuts, foot toys, and other fun things to play with. Please use only safe parts!" and a downloadable Toy‑Making Class PDF listed as "File Size: 19018 kb | File Type: pdf." Debbie Foster is recorded as presenting a February 8, 2025 event titled "What the Heck Is Enrichment?" with credentials CPBT‑KA and CPBC.

Expert guidance in the notes includes verbatim enrichment cautions from Robin Shewokis: "You can also play natural sound recordings. These might include rainforest sounds or other nature recordings like frogs and bugs. On some occasions you might want to try playing predator vocalizations for your pet. Be careful when you offer this type of enrichment that your parrot is able to get away from the source of the sound and that you don’t leave the calls playing if your bird appears distressed. Short doses of negative stimuli are healthy for captive animals. You know your bird better than anyone else and you must be aware of how your bird is reacting." The Robin profile also records her company history: "Robin Shewokis is the owner of The Leather Elves" and notes that "In 2000 The Leather Elves began working with zoos internationally" and that she has consulted at zoos in the US, Canada and Holland.

Several items in the event listings are truncated or fragmentary in the source material and warrant follow‑up for full clarity: the "Tools for Parrot Problem Solving [...]" entry, the "Introduction to Avian Behavior [...]" copy, and a partial device description that reads, "It is a small hand held device that comes with cards that are inserted into the" (Identiflyer fragment). For now, the Feb. 21, 2026 workshop stands on the Companion Parrots Re‑Homed calendar as a focused, hands‑on session to give guardians low‑cost, species‑appropriate enrichment tools, with archived Phoenix Landing resources and longtime enrichment voices such as Robin Shewokis forming the background library attendees were encouraged to draw on.