Long-Tailed Parakeets

Until I began reading about parakeets, I did not know LONG-TAILED PARAKEETS existed in the wild. I also thought all parakeets looked like my granddaughters budgies (blue or yellow with undulating stripes on their backs). The `Manual' on Long-Tailed Parakeets by Annette Wolter includes sections on everything from diet and health maintenance to 'how-to' brooding of parakeets. I especially like the many photos of the various wild parakeets from around the world (many taken in their native habitat) including a shot of a Quaker parrot like mine, which is apparently really a Quaker Parakeet. A number of the birds I think of as Conures are also parakeets. Wolter's book is an accessible easy-to-read volume with much of the material about companion bird keeping also found in other "bird" books (especially those by Vriends, who was her consulting editor) as well as relatively exclusive photos of various parakeets she describes as 'long-tailed'. The only thing I dislike about the photos in this book and many other bird books is that they often show birds biting on plants and almost always fail to identify the plant involved. As a gardener, I would like to know just exactly what that bird is chewing on so that I can grow it in my house (there are plenty of "do" or "don't" plant lists, but I know some of the plants shown in photos are not on those lists.