Louie the macaw enjoys a leafy respite.

SOONER or later, most parrot owners start thinking beyond the bird cage and dreaming of something bigger. Something outdoors. With landscaping. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an aviary?

The logistics of building an outdoor flight can seem daunting. Where will you put it? How much will it cost? And don’t proper aviaries need concrete floors and building permits?

It’s true you’ll have to sacrifice some yard space and cash to make your aviary a reality. But if you keep it small and casual, you can ignore the rest. After all, you want a safe place to park your parrot for a few hours when the weather is nice, not a heated, state-of-the-art breeding facility.

For parrots that spend all their time indoors, a backyard aviary can be a welcome change of scenery. The larger space gives them room to explore, play, fly and chew to their heart's content.

An aviary is also a great way to give your bird exposure to the natural lighting he needs for optimum health.

Best of all, an aviary keeps your parrot safely confined while outdoors, so you can relax. You can work in the yard, read a book on the patio or have friends over for a barbecue, all without having to keep a watchful eye on the feathered member of the family.

After years of promising ourselves "some day," my husband and I finally built our own 55-square-foot backyard aviary. It cost us a few weekends and about $500 in materials, but it’s been well worth it.

Now, we can’t imagine not having a backyard playpen for Allie the cockatiel, Nelson the lory, and Louie the macaw.

Start planning your aviary now and by spring your parrots can be outside soaking up the rays in their own jungle paradise.

Chicken wire's a no-no
When we first decided to build, I was so excited I immediately ran out and bought three rolls of chicken wire. That’s what my dad used for all my pigeon and rabbit pen projects when I was kid; why not our aviary?

Then I read that chicken wire is coated with toxic zinc. Doh! Back to the drawing board.

We made our second pen out of ¾-inch green plastic mesh and PVC pipe. We knocked together a structure 7 feet long, 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide in the driveway, then ceremoniously carried our masterpiece out into the tiny yard behind our rental house and set it down.

The aviary, as we liked to call it, had no bottom and could be knocked over by a strong wind, so one of us had to be present at all times to keep an eye on things.

To lash shut the slightly warped PVC-and-mesh door, which didn’t quite square with the PVC door frame, we used three heavy wires as twist ties.

Usually, one of us sat inside the aviary in a lawn chair. Eventually, we got tired of untying wires every time we wanted to leave or enter, so we just tipped the pen over on its side and ducked underneath.

We got strange looks from the neighbors. Still, we presided over our PVC aviary like the proud owners of a million-dollar home addition.

A real aviary
When we bought a house a year later we dismantled the pen and took it with us but we never bothered to put it back together. The new place had a huge back yard, and it was all ours. Now we could build a real aviary!

Three-quarter-inch nylon mesh makes strong, flexible aviary netting for parrots.

We decided to set aside a third of the vegetable garden for the new, permanent structure, which would measure 10 feet long by 7 ½ feet high by 5 ½ feet wide.

For your aviary's frame, you'll want a hardy, non-toxic wood. We used redwood, setting each of the four corner posts in a three-foot hole, which we filled with quick-drying cement. We added two-by-four runners at the top and bottom and framed a door.

Even though our pets would never spend the night outside, we installed a heavy wire mesh at the bottom and extended it four inches below the surface for extra reinforcement against burrowing predators.

Since none of our birds fly very well, it was not necessary to install an "air lock"--a foyer with a second door--to guard against escapes.

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