Macaws: Poster Birds for Conservation and Reintroduction

Thanks to shows like Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and PBS’s Nature, I learned to love and respect wildlife at an early age. I don’t know if that explains the fact that I have tried to have companions from many branches of the tree of life, and have settled on birds as the ones I am most comfortable living with.

Downsizing Goal with a Date

If you make a goal but don’t set the time frame, you are just making a wish. For example, I want to publish the second book in my Regency Banquet series but always hoped to have it out by August 2016. Now I am going to put it up for pre-sales, so I have to have it published by the date I pick. I have been wishing for an easy way to take care of my birds so that I have more time for writing. Now, I have a date of March 1^st to shoot for. My next writing convention is in March 2017, and I want to go! I’d like my husband to come along, but if he has to take care of the birds, the dog, the cat, and the plants, the plan will fail.

Birds on the Run

I hate to say it, but many birds have had a taste of freedom thanks to me. The bad part is, they probably did not get to enjoy it for long. Like my sweet lovebird Jake who has been gone for a year now, escape birds become hawk snacks quickly. At least he had found a yard where the people kept chickens, so food and water were available.

Love On The Wing

I just finished attending 4 days at the Romance Writers of America National Convention in San Diego so my mind is a little focused on things of that nature. During one wait for a workshop to start, I began jotting down titles of books about avian romances.

Changes in Their Cages

I love the music of Simon & Garfunkel, especially the song At The Zoo. There’s a line about an animal being skeptical of changes in their cages. I think the songwriter missed a bet, that should have been about a parrot. Have you ever tried to introduce a new toy without taking several cautious steps to let the bird get used to it first? Pandemonium breaks out for days.

Eric the Legend

I can’t believe I just found these videos. Eric is a bare-eyed cockatoo with attitude. My husband posted this video of Eric who loves broccoli being a little attitude on wings to my Facebook page. I love it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d1dwgc-oIs

Watch Your Step!

In the aviary, we always shuffle our feet in case the button quail pick that moment to scamper across the cage. The little birds are very delicate and one wrong step could be the end of a quail.Especially just hatched chicks. Shuffling not only means we are not likely to injure a bird, but also that we are stirring up the seeds on the ground and exposing yummy bugs and grubs. Button quail love their grubs.

Nursery Update

Cockatiel chicks are not especially attractive. Even before the feathers start and they are just lumps of down, they look misshapen and alien. So how can I be falling in love at first sight with the two in my nest box?

Part of it is that I already know one is a boy and one is a girl. The parents always give me albino females. Little ruby eyes and white feathers is certainly female. The other chick is mostly white with some grey and big dark eyes. Looks a lot like his father. Probably male.

I take them out and cuddle and kiss them as often as I can because I just can’t get enough of them. I even love that they poop on me as soon as I pick them up. D’aw!

They are two weeks old right now, and I would be pulling them to hand feed except I won’t be home most of next week. So I plan to pull them when I get back. They will be four weeks old, but if I have been handling them often, maybe they will make the transition to being good pets. The parents are not tame but are friendly. They love to sit on my shoulder when I am feeding them.

The chicks are growing beautifully, and the parents are feeding them all day long, so there’re no worries there. They have survived the heat and some odd cold mornings, thanks to the excellent parents.

I am expecting another wave of button quail chicks any day now and have moved the nearly adult clutch outside to a cage set up for them. I am going to try to sell them but since they are all related, I will have to give out the names of other breeders I know. Not really a problem. One of my friends bought 50 quail eggs off of eBay, and almost all are hatching now. They will be from different parents, so she can make up unrelated pairs without too much difficulty.

My husband figured out a great solution to getting my breeder cages, as yet unused, up off the ground. And he solved the need for an airlock. So my finches and Indian Ringneck parakeets will be heading outside soon. I only have one pair of zebra finches that are giving me eggs, and that’s just a guess. They are using a wooden nest box that I can’t see into. But they have hatched babies out before, sadly in a carton nest that didn’t survive long. So I am awaiting the babies fledging so I will know what I have.

I hope that colony breeding will allow the finches to pick their own mates and be more proactive in raising families. I love the sound of baby zeebs begging for food. For their size, they can be very aggressive.

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back on Sunday.

Independent Kids

I think of my inside parrots as my kids in a lot of ways. I have to feed them, or at least provide food. I have to clean them, play with them, teach them, and make sure they are comfortable through the night. Maybe I am a bit too intrusive into their lives, like a helicopter parent. They certainly have their way to show me they are independent souls.