I don't think the type of birds you are considering take any extreme effort other than care and attention like you were already planning on. A large bird like a full size parrot or McCaw takes a lot more effort and attention or they can develop problem behaviors. They need a lot of training and work with any problem behaviors in order to prevent them from becoming the ruler of the house, because I have heard nightmare stories of large birds like McCaws that rule the house!

Those types can become spoiled brats so to speak if they aren't handled and trained correctly. I used to visit a pet store where you could bring your dogs in with you to shop, and they had a McCaw they let run around the store.. only it walked around and terrorized the dogs, coming up and lunging at them and causing a ruckus. When they put the bird in its cage, it began screaming at the top of its lungs, and a McCaw can have deafening screams. He would NOT stop screaming, not for anything, till they opened his door again.

But again, I don't think this is the type of bird you are looking into anyway. A parakeet, tiel, dove etc., would not take this kind of time and effort, they are pretty easy to train and can be happy as long as they have company and are well cared for, preferably with some time to be with people every day for awhile too, plenty of toys and things to play with, etc.