Neuro preening the baby cocky

When I brought the little red tailed black cocky chick home, who I now call Alamo, I was excited to introduce him to my birds. I expected there to be some adjustment time and there was, I just supervised and introduced one bird at a time. I figured Neuro would be a bit too much with his energy level so I started with Chili. Chili is only young herself so she would be more subdued and gentle. At first she preened Alamo's feathers around his beak and his chest feathers, it was quite sweet. She then moved around to his back and jumped on! He didn't like that and squawked loudly his discontent. At this point I realized that Chili is young but she is just now exploring the pressure of her beak and now is probably not a good time to let her play with the chick. So this meant I would introduce Neuro, after all, the purpose of this is to get Alamo used to other birds as the other two hand raised black cockies hate other birds! They throw tantrums and flail about, tossing their wings from side to side, head cocked back and wailing. Such a site for a bird as small as a zebra dove to cause. Why is this a problem? Well, our current red tailed black cockatoo on a perch in the park is Ash. He's lovely, you can get a 18 month old baby to feed him seeds he's so gentle. The trouble is, the moment a bird lands on his perch or a man (he favors women) gets too close he jumps off of his perch and destroys the landscaping. He also goes on adventures across the billabong (see cockatoo shenanigans and crocodile joy) and that's why I want to raise a very well socialized bird. People often ask me how I got Neuro to be the lovable, outgoing, friendly, bird friendly, non sex-specific bird that he is and I tell them "socialize early and often". That's what I'm trying to do here and Neuro surprised me with his gentle affection toward Alamo. Here is some video of their interaction while preening.

Location:Alligator creek

Baby love

How cute is this 8 week old red tailed black cockatoo chick?!!!
...he's snoozing on my lap now. :)


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Location:Mt Panorama Dr,Alligator Creek,Australia

Nature is cruel sometimes.

    A little over a month ago we had a pair of sunbirds make a nest in the spanish moss hanging from the verandah on the front of our house. This has been such a pleasure to watch their speed and skill in making these pendulum nests. They are quite beautiful birds, as you can see below.

 We have this very bush in our yard and I often pick the blossoms for my lorikeets to feed on. The type of sunbird we get is the Olive Backed Sunbird.

This is the beginning of the nest. At first I thought some debris got blown into my moss and I picked it out, the next day, it was back but with more to it, that's when I knew a sunbird had picked it as a nest site.

The male sunbird finds materials and constructs this nest in about a week.

At what seems like a very short time two small eggs appeared. I didn't want to disturb them so I didn't take a picture. After about 2 weeks, these guys were in the nest. Amazing how quick they grow.

This is one of the chicks awaiting a feed from one of the parents.

It's always fun coming home and seeing how the babies are developing and watching the parents buzz in and out. Sunbirds build nests close to humans because we ward off predators. 

When I came home yesterday, this is what I found in the nest.

I was so confused, where could they have gone? Could the parents have carried them away? They were too young to fledge...

Then I looked on the ground below. The remains of one of the chicks, I have no idea what happened to the other. I did see the male sunbird flitting around on our back verandah.... maybe they will try again. I can only hope. I was so looking forward to watching their first flights. :(

Birds of a feather....

As many of you already know, I'm a bit of a bird nerd. I love all things avian, especially psitticines or birds of the parrot species and corvids, which include magpies, crows and even birds of paradise. Recently at Billabong Sanctuary we have developed a free flight bird show, with the help of my very awesome housemate, Ryan or better known as "Eagle". In this show, which takes place everyday at 2pm, we fly different birds. In the current line-up is "Freeze" the Bush-stone Curlew, "Skwimm" the Tawny Frogmouth, "Guenther" the Australian Barn Owl, "Roxy" the Barking Owl, "Yasi" the Black Kite, and "Billy", the Sulfur Crested Cockatoo.

On the left is "Freeze" when he was only a baby and on the right is "Skwimm".

 On the left is Ryan with "Yasi" and on the right is me with "Geunther".

 On the left is "Roxy" and on the right "Billy" joins us for our morning break.

"Ash" on the left is on a perch during the day and guests can feed him sunflower seeds. On the right, "Selena" the emu rests her head on my shoulder.








Getting to work with these amazing birds is a real privilege but it gets even more fun for me as I work to train the new entries to the bird show! As I raised "Skwimm" I knew he was going to be a bird that the public would interact with so I did a lot of socialization with him to get him ready. With "Selena" I hope to walk her down to the show area and have her lie down with me while I show people what an imprinted bird behaves like then allow people to come and give her a pat! We are also in the process of training a chicken, a whistling kite and hopefully "Snugglepot" will eventually make an appearance flying in the show! We have 8 Swainson's lorikeets that I am training to fly to the show area, feed on nectar out of cups the public holds then fly back. I'm putting up a nest box with the hopes of hand raising a few so that interact with the public more.

Another fun part of my job is having the role of baby birdie momma. I get to raise the birds in my home and really enjoy all the things that go into the care of a baby bird. Sure they are noisy, and a bit messy but it's a very rewarding activity. Below is a sequence of the time that we raised the barn owls.

5 week old and still puffy.

Two week old fluff balls

Fully fledged and eating on their own.

"Geunther" coming down to the show area for his performance!

 On the left I am in a training session with "Roxy" and in the background "Snugglepot" can be seen looking on.
On the right, the two baby curlews huddled up on the rug at my house.








Next week I will be bringing home the new Red-tailed Black Cockatoo chick and again, the house will have gone to the birds!!! Stay tuned, more birdie action ahead in the coming posts!