Peaches, at right, a Malaccan cockatoo, appears to be smiling for the camera. At far right, Lisa Figuerado takes macaw Emma out of a cage in the living room of her Coburn Street home. Figuerado estimates she has placed about 180 exotic birds with new owners in the eight years she has run the shelter.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

WARWICK — A visitor can hear a squawk or two outside Lisa Figuerado’s modest home on Coburn Street.

But one has to step inside to get a true sense for the noisy, colorful kaleidoscope that is Rhode Island’s only known bird shelter.

Cages line the living room and an old bedroom in the back.

Forty cockatoos, cockatiels and other parrots crow for attention.

And when the racket becomes unbearable, Blue, a blue and gold macaw, attempts to restore order.

“Stop it!” he caws, or “Be quiet!”

“He’s my little tattletale,” said Figuerado, 38, better known in these parts as the Bird Lady.

But Figuerado, who estimates that she has processed about 180 bird adoptions in the last eight years, said she may have to abandon her shelter in the coming weeks.

About two years ago, a twisted ankle turned into a chronic pain condition known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome, which has no known cure.

Health insurance helped to cover the cost of four surgeries and various medications designed to dull the pain.

But Figuerado, a medical billing clerk and single mother of one, said she fell behind on her mortgage payments when she had to take off several months from work in late 2006 and early 2007 for the surgeries.

A foreclosure looms next month and Figuerado, seeking a rental, has had little luck finding a landlord who will tolerate her avian operation, known as Harley’s Haven after one of her first parrots.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said, seated on her couch yesterday amid the cages. “These birds have nowhere to go.”

Figuerado’s love of animals dates to her childhood.

“We had pets growing up in Western Coventry,” she said. “There were always deer around, rabbits, I had friends with horses.”

After moving to Warwick 15 years ago, she began looking after cats and dogs through foster care programs.

And in 2000, she took in her first bird, Emma, an ornery military macaw with green plumage.

Word got around quickly.

“Before I knew it, there were 10 birds,” she said. “And I decided to start a rescue here in Rhode Island.”

She said it costs about $200 to $250 per month to feed and care for the birds, but that she regularly receives donations of food and other supplies.

Figuerado said the parrots are like three-year-old children — in need of both love and limits.

“If you let a three-year-old get away with all kinds of things, you’re going to have a spoiled brat,” she said.

And like mischievous children, she said, the birds have been known to play a trick or two.

One favorite: imitating the sound of ringing phone, watching Figuerado run to pick up the receiver, and cackling in delight.

But Figuerado said Harley’s Haven has a serious aim.

The captive bird population — pets and other parrots kept by zookeepers, breeders and others — has exploded in recent decades, reaching 40 to 60 million by some estimates.

And experts say many buy parrots without recognizing their ear-splitting, finger-pecking, furniture-ruining proclivities.

Fed up, a growing number of bird owners is attempting to surrender their pets to dog- and cat-focused shelters, which often are ill-equipped to handle birds, and avian sanctuaries.

Paul Brennan, director of the New England Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary, in Hopkinton, said his organization is caring for about 500 parrots at present.

The sanctuary, the largest retirement home for birds in the region, rejects the idea of parrots as pets and groups the birds in aviaries in a bid to recreate the wild.

But Brennan said he is still worried about the possibility that Harley’s Haven will fold.

The Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary is at capacity and could not take any of Figuerado’s birds, he said.

And David Holden, director of the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said shelters around the state might have trouble absorbing the flock.

“I don’t know how you could place 40 birds,” he said. “That’s a lot.”

But he said the RISPCA could take on a half-dozen birds — and possibly more on a temporary basis.

Holden also pledged to look around for help elsewhere.

Figuerado, for her part, is hoping for a last-minute resolution of her mortgage mess or, absent that, a landlord with a love for the winged.

There are birds in need of care, she said, and people in need of birds.

“I’m just desperate at this point,” she said.

dscharfe@projo.com