That Bird Blog – Bird Care and History for Pet Birds

I first kept Red-Vented Bulbuls (Pycnonotus cafer) as “filler birds” to take up space in a huge, planted aviary I maintained at the Bronx Zoo.  However, their confident, inquisitive natures soon led to their being among the exhibit’s most popular inhabitants with visitors.  I find them to be among the most easily-kept of the softbills (a term applied to a loose collection of “non-typical” cage birds such as Bulbuls, Pekin Robins and others), and a great species with which to start when seeking to add variety to one’s collection.

Description and Range

Red-Vented Bulbuls inhabit a huge range that extends from India east to Vietnam and south to Java; they have also been introduced to Hawaii and many other places.  They inhabit open woodlands, scrub, farms, villages and cities, pairing off while breeding but otherwise going about in small groups. Read More »

The quite unexpected antics of a number of parrots have made news this past week…from assisting drug cartel members in Columbia (unwittingly, of course!) to exposing the unfaithfulness of an owner’s partner (perhaps on purpose?), pet parrots continue to show that they are well equipped to trick, help and frustrate us…

Love Triangle Exposed

Parents learn very quickly to watch what they say around toddlers – parrot owners, it seems, should as well.  Upon sitting down on a couch near her bird cage, a woman who owned an African Gray Parrot was surprised to hear her pet say “Oh Claire ,oh Claire, I love you!” – surprised because her name was not Claire!

Suspecting that her boyfriend was using the couch for purposes other than watching TV, the woman called him at work…only to find that he was at lunch with, as fate would have it, Claire.  Within a day or so the woman caught the pair leaving her home at a time when they thought she was at work.  Unfortunately, Harvey the parrot seemed to enjoy screaming out Claire’s name (perhaps he had heard it very often!) – so much so that his owner found him a new home! Read More »

New efforts are underway to help 2 critically endangered Caribbean parrots, the Bahaman Amazon (Amazona leucocephala bahamensis) and the Puerto Rican Amazon (A. vittata). The various Caribbean islands are a hot-bed both of parrot diversity and parrot troubles – the Guadeloupe and Martinique Amazon Parrots, and a subspecies of the Puerto Rican Amazon (formerly found on Culebra Island), are already extinct.

The Bahaman Amazon

The Bahaman Amazon, also known as the Bahama Parrot, is closely related to the Cuban Amazon (please see photo).  It is limited in distribution to the Bahaman Islands of Grand Abaco and Grand Inagua.  Read More »

With a mere 500 or so individuals remaining in the wild, and very few in captivity, the Lear’s Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) is one of the world’s scarcest parrots.  Yet in its tiny home range of northeastern Bahia State, Brazil, this brilliant indigo-blue macaw poses a serious threat to subsistence corn farmers.  Parrots International, in concert with Pro Aves Brazil, the Lymington Foundation and other groups, has devised a most unique initiative that benefits farmers and birds alike.

Endangered but Troublesome

It’s easy for folks living in relative financial security to criticize others for killing macaws, but for indigent subsistence farmers in Bahia State, Brazil, the Lear’s Macaw represents a serious threat to survival.  The birds pillage the fields of people who, working without the benefit of mechanized equipment and fertilizer, raise barely enough corn to feed their families and livestock.  Children are often kept home from school in order to chase the bird, but the enterprising macaws have learned to largely ignore their efforts.  Read More »

Cowbirds, cuckoos and whydahs are well known brood parasites, meaning that females deposit eggs in the nests of other bird species and leave them to the care of their unsuspecting foster parents.  Finch owners may be surprised to learn that some female Zebra Finches also use this reproductive strategy – but with a special twist.

Cheating…Zebra Finch Style

Researchers at Bavaria’s Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (the former stomping grounds of the legendary animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz) have discovered that certain female Zebra Finches specialize in taking advantage of their neighbors’ nests.  Read More »