Abstract
Anyone who knew Yvonne McGee realized within a minute or two that she was just as colorful as the birds she loved and kept. Always light-hearted and willing to share a colorful joke she had just heard, Yvonne was cherished by many, but few knew her long and somewhat, celebrity background.
A resident of Muir Beach, California for
many years, Yvonne shared her home with Yvonne with her Bia parrots of many species over the years.
She was "old school" in that she bred, raised, trained, and conditioned her birds before she allowed them to leave. She became something of a legend in the area for her tame and talking conures, cockatoos, macaws, amazons, and parakeets. She had a thing for the unusual as well and kept species such as Blue-rumped parrots and the tiny Amazona albifrons nana. It was not unusual to find a cardinal or two in her aviary either, but she swears they flew in there on their own.
Yvonne's birds were in demand and demanded a high price. Due to her unique care and socialization processes, celebrities, tycoons, and the occasional powerful politician came to Yvonne for a bird. She was the resident expert on hand rearing and parrot training but she never lowered her standards no matter who asked to buy a bird. She was known to turn a customer away, money in hand, if she felt they would not provide the proper home for one of her birds. She tells a story about a madam from a brothel that came to her door demanding to buy a parrot for the "business", and she finishes the story by saying "She went away empty handed".
Yvonne met her husband Taylor in 1947 at a dance at the Fairmont Hotel. She had recently moved from New York to work for an advertising agency on the Matson Lines account and he was a distinguished U.S. Army Air Corps officer who flew the B-26 Marauder bomber in Europe. They were together for 68 years and raised three children.
To many of us, Yvonne was the "finder". You need only mention to her what bird you needed for your breeding program and she would go to work. She had contacts on both coasts and everywhere in between. The conversation started with a joke and a good laugh, and went on to the business of locating a mate for a lonely bird in someone's aviary. She will be missed and her passing leaves yet another hole in the network of breeders and bird lovers we call aviculture.