That Bird Blog – Bird Care and History for Pet Birds

The Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae) is at once a popular pet and an endangered species. Large and stocky (for a finch), it boasts a stunning array of 7 bright colors, a fact that has long rendered it among the most expensive of all finches. However, it is now widely bred here in the USA, and prices are coming down a bit.

Color and Male Dominance
In addition to thrilling bird owners for the past 100 years or so, it seems that the males’ spectacular plumage plays an unexpected role in Gouldian finch behavior as well. Wild Gouldian finches are unique in possessing heads that may be red, black or yellow in color. Red-headed males dominate all others, with yellow headed males being at the bottom of the pecking order.

Mixing Things Up
To discover if head color granted any specific survival advantage, University of New South Wales researchers applied black dye to yellow-headed males. Although the behavior of the dyed birds did not change, other individuals avoided fights with these formerly bullied males.

When red-headed males were dyed yellow, the former red-heads remained aggressive, but other birds did not readily give way to them at feeding stations (it might be interesting to show the redheads a mirror – maybe they would “realize” they were no longer dominant!).

So it seems that red-headed males truly are more aggressive than others, and that a red head likely confers competitive advantages in activities such as feeding and access to favorable nest sites. Future research will focus on the connection between color and behavior in other species.

Gouldian Finches in the Wild
In the wild, Gouldian finches are limited to small sections of wooded savannah in Australia’s tropical north, and are considered highly endangered.

They live in small groups both in and out of the breeding season and are, as finches go, rather specialized in their feeding habits. Gouldian finches vary their diets with the seasons. For much of the year, sorghum seeds (a grass) are their primary food, but during the rainy season they subsist nearly entirely upon moths, grasshoppers, termites, spiders and other invertebrates.

Next time I’ll go over some special concerns to bear in mind when considering a pair of these lovely birds.

Further Reading
World Wildlife Fund Australia has posted an interesting article on the dire threats facing Gouldian finches in the wild: http://www.wwf.org.au/articles/feature17/

Gouldian finches make wonderful pets and aviary birds, but require more room than similarly-sized finches. Please see my article Bird Cage Overview  for further information.

Image referenced from Wikipedia and originally posted by Martybugs.

Studies carried out on the campus of Florida’s University of Gainesville (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: May, 2009) have established that, after a mere 60 seconds of exposure, mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) can identify specific people from among thousands of passers-by.

Identifying a Threat

To test the birds’ abilities, researchers gently touched mockingbird nests on 4 successive days, and then walked quickly away.  By the third day, the resident mockingbirds would leave the nest upon sighting the researcher approach, even if the person dressed differently and used an alternate route to the nest.  The enraged birds often attacked the intruders with pecks to the head before they could reach the nest.

When people “not known” to the mockingbirds approached, the birds would freeze and not fly off until the last possible moment.  Strangers who merely walked close to the nests were not attacked, yet the “annoying” researchers were, even as time went on…this despite the fact that the nests were located along walkways routinely used by the campus’ 51,000+ students!

Survival Value

Owners of parrots, mynas and toucans have often commented on their pets’ abilities to discriminate among different people, but this is the first evidence of just how quickly some birds can learn and profit from new information.  This facility for survival may help explain the mockingbird’s unprecedented range expansion in recent years.  Forty years ago they were sporadic summer visitors to New York City suburbs, but are now resident in the heart of Manhattan and points north year-round.

Mockingbirds in Captivity

Mockingbirds are much-favored as pets in parts of Puerto Rico, where their responsiveness is said to lead to extraordinarily strong relationships with their owners.  Those I have worked with as a wildlife rehabilitator exhibited an amazing degree of intelligence and mimicry abilities that I still find difficult to believe.

Further Reading

Not to be outdone, crows and ravens are also quite capable learners. While in Japan I came across some fascinating evidence of tool use (cars, no less!) by carrion crows.  Please see the following articles for a variety of stories documenting just how resourceful some birds can be:

Japan‘s Intelligent Carrion Crows

Do Parrots Recognize Human Faces?

Ravens at Work – the World’s Smartest Birds?

A study published this month (May, 2009) by the Massachusetts General Burn Hospital establishes for the first time that a stimulating captive environment can reverse the negative health effects of injury and isolation.  Although rats were the study subjects, the results are believed applicable to a wide range of animals, including birds.

Stress and Captivity

Stress has previously been shown to significantly delay wound healing in humans and many animals.  Students of ethology (animal behavior) have long advised that providing captive animals with opportunities to play, explore, build nests and otherwise remain stimulated improves overall health.  In fact, the American Zoo Association now requires member organizations to incorporate “behavioral enrichment” into the husbandry protocols of most species.

Environment and Health

In the current study, 92% of young rats raised in group situations exhibited normal to rapid healing abilities.  Only 12% of those raised in isolation (a stressful situation for young rats) healed well.  However, when rats raised in isolation were provided with stimulating environments (in this case, the opportunity to build new nests twice weekly), 64% healed normally.

Environmental stimulation was also shown to reduce hyperactive behavior and even to positively affect gene expression in the brain’s hypothalamus, which is important in regulating stress response.

Parrots and other Birds

The implications for parrot owners are clear – provide these intelligent, social birds with companionship (human or otherwise) and as stimulating an environment as is possible.  But don’t forget finches, doves and others not deemed as “intellectually gifted” as our Psittacine friends – my experience has shown that a host of animals, including frogs, lizards and fishes, utilize and benefit from behavioral stimulation.

Enriching Your Pet’s Life

For ideas on improving your bird environment and, it follows, health, please check out our extensive line of bird toys, playpens and cages.

Further Reading

For more on this important topic, please see my article Behavioral Enrichment for Parrots and Finches Use Parrot Toys Too!

Images referenced from Morguefile.

Ecuador’s yellow-eared parrot (Ognorhynchus icterotis) and golden-plumed parakeet (Leptosittacia branickii) face a most unusual threat – an annual religious celebration.  The group Aves and Conservation has identified the collection of palm fronds for Catholic Easter celebrations as the main cause of the species’ near disappearance from Ecuador.

Survival Linked to a Single Tree

Both birds nest exclusively in Ceroxylon palms, the central leaves of which are harvested yearly in an unsustainable manner.  The palms do not reproduce until age 25-30, and live to age 75-100.  Removal of the leaves prevents reproduction, and may kill the palm.  The golden-plumed parakeet, once common throughout much of Ecuador, is now limited to the southern Andes provinces; the yellow-eared parrot has not been sighted at all in recent years, and is believed to number less than 150 nation-wide.

Providing Education and Alternatives

In cooperation with the government and other conservation groups, Aves and Conservation has embarked on a program designed to alert local people of the plight of both palms and parrots.  Local Catholic churches have been cooperating in the effort, encouraging members to use corn stalks and Eucalyptus in place of palms.

These substitute plants, grown at the Botanical Gardens of Quito and other locations, are distributed yearly in front of churches, and are gaining acceptance.  Happily, the golden-plumed parakeet has begun to reclaim some of its former range (please see below).

This program illustrates the importance of including within a conservation plan those people who will be most affected, and of offering alternatives.  Blanket prohibitions that impinge upon people’s religious beliefs or livelihoods are, in my experience, difficult to enforce and rarely successful in the long term.

Further Reading

You can read about recent golden-plumed parakeet nesting records at 

http://www.worldlandtrust.org/news/labels/Ecuador.htm#7881806187526800422.

Images referenced from Wikipedia and originally posted by markharper1 and Loise Wolff

Research conducted at New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Nature: May, 2009) has, for the first time, illustrated the complex interplay of genetics, learning and social situation in the acquisition of birdsong.

Learning What Song to Sing

As is true for all birds studied, zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) raised in isolation from others of their kind fail to develop the song typically sung by the species.

It was therefore long believed that birds learned species-specific notes by listening to the calls of adults.  In fact, zebra finches that are raised by society finch foster parents sing the song of the society finch, not their own, once mature.

The Surprising Influence of Genes

In the Cold Spring Harbor experiment, finches raised in isolation developed odd songs that were not typical of their species, and this song was mimicked by their chicks.  However, after 4-5 generations, the typical (natural, wild-type) zebra finch song began to emerge, despite the fact that the birds had never heard this song.

The shocked scientists concluded that the song is stored within the genome, but that several generations must pass before it emerges spontaneously.  Under normal circumstances (i.e. where the chicks are raised with exposure to the adult song), learning interacts with genetics to assure that the song is acquired right away.

Future Research Objectives

Ornithologists are interested in discovering if the same process is at work in other species as well…perhaps even the complex and beautiful song of the nightingale is encoded in each male chick.

This research also is expected to have important implications in the study of human language development, and will hopefully lead to new advances in speech therapy.

Further Reading

The zebra finch is one of our most important laboratory animals, and the story of its entry into the pet trade has some surprising twists and turns.  Please see my article The Unknown Side of the Zebra Finch for further information.

A review of this species’ vital role as a laboratory subject is posted at

http://genome.wustl.edu/genome.cgi?GENOME=Taeniopygia%20guttata

NightingGale image referenced from Wikipedia and originally posted by Orchi.