About US

Natural Inspirations Parrot Cages is a family owned and operated business based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The cofounders, Karrie Noterman and Rick Kamperman, combine years of parrot experience together with extensive engineering, construction, and materials knowledge to create unique, safe, quality-built bird toys and cages.  Much of the Inspiration for the products comes from Karrie's amazing pet birds, as well as parrots that she's worked with, and her experiences with wild parrots from around the world. To view her birds CLICK HERE.

   20 yrs later she's still my little girl! 
 3 month old baby Blue and Gold Macaw, Tiki.                                 Tiki, on her 20th birdday!      

The 20 plus years I've been involved with birds has been a magical, wonderful, and educational journey that I'm so thankful I've gotten the opportunity to experience!  It all started with a grey cockatiel, Link, at a local pet store.  He was "free with cage" since some people considered him a bit rough around the edges :)  I adored him from the word go!   

At the age of 12 I began volunteering at Parrot Jungle and Gardens in Florida.  There I learned about the amazing variety of parrots in the world and basic training skills from volunteering in the 'baby bird training cage'.  It also allowed me to see first hand that parrots flourished when in the flock environment and cohabitated in large aviaries together.  Most importantly I got my first exposure to the fact that even with bonded mates the parrots were still eager to interact with people and handleable.  This was a very different line of thought to what was taught back then - "if you keep birds together they will bond and hate you."  Some of this thinking continues to linger today at the detriment of the parrots housed in solitude. 

 Two years later I transitioned to The National Aviary in Pittsburgh, PA.  I can't say enough about this organization.  It was here that a deep appreciation, affection, and passion for all bird life, for research and knowledge, and for optimal housing was gained.  If the National Aviary couldn't house something well - they didn't do it.  Their standards of care and commitment to education has stayed with me throughout my life.  I volunteered every week at the aviary for four years.  For this dedication and service, I was awarded the Carnegie Centennial Award in 1998 which hangs in the Carnegie Science center in Pittsburgh, P.A. 

  In 1999 I started working as a bird trainer in the Wild Wings Free Flight bird show at Sea World in Ohio.  This was an amazing time of my life!  It gave me a totally different perspective and taught me how to train lots of different free flight and other behaviors to parrots, raptors, cranes, storks, hornbills, condors, pelicans, and cassowaries.  It also illuminated the fact that the parrots that we worked with were just as 'wild' as the eagle or flamingo and responded to the same training methods.  This was an amazingly fun experience that I am so grateful I got the opportunity to participate in!

When I started my freshman year at College majoring in psychology and biology the following year, and Sea World closed for the winter, I needed a new job.  I was also having problems with living on campus when my Blue and Gold macaw, who I left at home, started plucking her feathers.  I was very distressed and nearly quit school.  As fate would have it I ran into Kim Leslie-Noble, Director of Northcoast Bird Adoption and Rehabilitation Center, who needed a helper to care for and rehab her personal and rescue birds.  It was more perfect than I could imagine.  I got paid to play with parrots all day!  It was 10 minutes from my school and Tiki got to live in the bird room.  I only worked part time, but since Tiki was there I spent hours at the rescue 7 days a week.  At Northcoast Bird Adoption I was exposed to an enormous amount of behaviors issues exhibited by a huge variety of birds from biting conures to screaming macaws to mutilating cockatoos.  I began doing behavior consults with potential adopters and becoming very involved in parrot rescue.  It was here I fell in love with my Umbrella cockatoo, Pele, whom I adopted in 2000. 

In 2003 I got the amazing opportunity to complete my Psychology degree senior thesis at Amigos de las Aves in Costa Rica for 4 weeks.  It was my first exposure to wild parrots in the wild - I was hooked.  It was love at first flap!!  Here I worked both at the facility in Alajuela caring for the breeder birds, feeding babies, and recording data, and also at the release site in Tiskita.  The jungle felt like home and seeing the birds fly free felt like heaven.  I got an eye opening up close and personal look at two things that were severely lacking from all education in American aviculture - how much energy and space birds need and how incredibly social they are.  This is also where my love for Great Green or Buffons Macaws (Ara ambigua) was born.  These birds are critically endangered.  If you would like to donate towards in situ programs focused on their safety and release with The World Parrot Trust click here. 

 The idea of keeping a bird alone in a little cage in the house suddenly felt horribly inadequate.  Knowing that my cockatoo was wild caught made things worse, as he lived this life I was seeing and was currently living in a 3x3 cage in my spare bedroom.  I took a very, very, serious look at how I was keeping my birds.  Things changed right then and there.  I got a second job at a night club to earn extra money and several months later I bought my first outdoor aviary from Corners Limited for $2000.  It was worth every penny.  My second priority was to create a 'flock' for my birds.  I began looking for more wild caught, mate killer, male cockatoos for Pele and a sweet, female, older macaw for Tiki.  For my cockatiels I purchased a macaw (this makes me laugh!) breeder cage that was 4x4x8' long with 1/2 x3 wire.  They LOVED the space and I was shocked how much I began enjoying just watching them!  With all the toys and room the little flock was constantly interacting, playing, flying, and in motion.  This was a glaring contrast to their prior cage which was 24x36.  The same transformation occurred with my umbrella cockatoo when he moved into his outdoor aviary.  What I had experienced in the jungle was ringing true in my pets.  Seeing the difference in my own birds really hit home for me.  There was no turning back.  They could never live in small cages again and the 3x3 went in the trash that afternoon without a second thought.  

In 2005 I added my Goffins cockatoo, Halo, to our flock and built the second octagon aviary and then connected them with a 6' wide hallway so they could fly between them.  The cockatoos flourished in this new environment!  The more we put in the aviary the more the birds were quiet, calm, and content.  The nervous behaviors, repetitive behaviors, and screaming hyper moments disappeared.

In 2006 I was able to visit Australia for a couple of years.  That was an incredible journey in my life.  Seeing dozens of different parrot species up close and personal in the wild taught me so much about parrot body language, habits, and 'normal' daily activities and behavior.  It allowed me to look at my pets behaviors in a new light and gain perspective about their daily routines, energy output, and activities.  Parrots are truly amazing creatures.  The one thing that stood out more than anything was how incredibly social they were.  The flocks constantly interacted, played, vocalized, and bickered with one another.  The sheer numbers of some of the flocks was daunting - seeing at least 100 parrots together on more than a dozen occasions.  The species also freely mingled with one another.  Multiple species of cockatoo were often at the same feeding locations and there were even interactions between rosellas, port lincoln parrots, etc.

September of 2009 I was so fortunate to be able to spend 3 months in Tambopata, Peru volunteering at the Tambopata Research Center.  This was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream after reading about the clay licks in National Geographic in the early 1990's.  The people and birds of Peru will always have a very special place in my heart!  And what I saw there was spectacular!!  I also learned so much -say goodbye to height dominance, birds mating for life, and 10-12 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  Spending 8-10 hours a day watching hundreds of wild parrots interacting in their natural habitats is as close to heaven as I think it gets.  It's amazing to see their aerial acrobatics and hear the huge array of natural vocalizations the different species posses. 

OK. Enough about me.  Lets get back to the great toys for your birds!   2x4 birdy brackets   Tiki Ropes