Birds - Favorite Species

[Linna Heartbooger]

Here is one of my favorite species... I was just thinking about the first time I talked to someone about these cockatoos... (because I mispronounced "Leadbeater's" ...though they are also called "Major Mitchell's Cockatoos." I blame books for all my first mispronunciations!)
...and then I thought of you guys.

Here ya go:


Leadbeater's Cockatoo

Tell me y'all's!!
(though I have multiple favorite types of birds.)

[Skyweir]

What a beauty

Cockatiels and Cockatoos are graced with the most engaging personalities. I cared for one who just LOVED being with you. He would cleverly and adeptly unlatch his aviary and fly over to where we were working on the property. Sooo funny and sooo naughty ... and sooo much personality.

[StevieG]

Yeah we have a cockatiel - the funniest, naughtiest, and most engaging bird

Amazing personalities.

[Avatar]

Peregrine Falcon



--A

[Skyweir]

Oh wow another beauty

When I was up in the Ozzy Alpines I saw four wedge tail eagles perched on top of a blackened tree and as we approached they all took flight at once. Was simply stunning as well as a little breathtaking to see these huge predatory birds gracefully rise in unison.

[sgt.null]

Julie's favorite are vultures.

[Skyweir]

Interesting... predatory carrion feeder. Im not a fan of the balding necks but very interesting birds.

[Cord Hurn]

Peregrine Falcon



--A

Yes, I love these birds very much! Sometimes, I get lucky as a biologist and get an assignment to go look for these birds and see how they are doing. It's been great to see the comeback they have been achieving in North America, now that the pesticides that caused thinning egg shells have been banned for many years.

[Cord Hurn]

Hummingbirds are avian creatures that I never get tired of seeing! They are so frail and yet so strong and energetic! I can forgive them for being so short-tempered with each other, because there's always something inspirational about seeing them.

[darthbuzz]

My favorite birds are European Magpies... very much like me. They like to collect and hoard shiny things and don't seem to take life too seriously. Unlike me, they are intelligent.
Secondly, the coot. Just love the look of them running around. Very comical.




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"Only when the last tree has died and the last river poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money" -Cree Indian Prophecy

[peter]

Great topic!

Of course, like everyone I love eagles and the spectacular hawk and falcon families; those cold aloof eyes and majestic faces! I once knew a buzzard (the English kind - not a vulture) that sat atop a lonely country telegraph pole. He was there in the bleak winter cold and rain. He was there in the spring greening and he was there when the autumn winds shook the leaves from the trees. He was there when the summer sun warmed his back and he treated them all the same - with detached acceptance. One time I saw a very rare sight; a gathering of buzzards all standing upright in a large field, evenly spread and motionless like statues on Easter Island, maybe fifty of them. I don't know if this behaviour has ever been recorded in the species before; I expect it was to do with the field being a recently cut corn field where the stubble made good hunting for exposed mice nests etc, but don't know really.

Then there are the seagulls - the 'shit-hawks' as they are known by an unsympathetic public in my part of the world, who only see them as vermin on a par with rats (who I love as well). Yes, they tear open rubbish bags and make a mess - but this is our fault not theirs. I've looked after orphan seagull chicks (well - just chucked them into a walled garden really and given them the leftover dog and cat food from the kennel to feed on) and a week after taking them in had their parent gulls land on the roof squawking in recognition. They must have been scouring the town searching for their lost youngsters. They they stayed close by until the young birds were ready to fly away.

And finally, another nuisance bird - the pigeon. Known for their flocking in city centers and the mess they make therein, this noble little bird will fly 600 miles to be reunited with it's mate in the loft, often returning days or even weeks after it's release. The art of kit-flying is a lost one now, but most of the domestic breeds were developed in Roman times and the practice of flying kits of cumulets, white birds who fly in groups of five in a circular path vertically above the loft, higher and higher until they are no more than white flashes against the blue sky, is rarely seen. The birds fly up and up, and then circle their way back down to the loft and competitions were held to see who's kit would remain airborne for the longest. And pigeons pair for life; who could not love them who takes the trouble to get to know them.

[Avatar]

Good post.

--A

[sgt.null]

Interesting... predatory carrion feeder. Im not a fan of the balding necks but very interesting birds.

We have many around here.

[darthbuzz]

And pigeons pair for life; who could not love them who takes the trouble to get to know them.

Great, another rock dove (pigeon), rat and gull fan. Very successful species' indeed.
Certain species of birds mate for life, including geese, swans, cranes, eagles and pigeons. It's a true statement, for the most part, but it's only part of the story. Lots of monogamous bird species cheat, and some "divorce"- but at rates much much lower than humans.


________________
"Just be nice."

[peter]

There is an arcane loosely based thing in the UK known as 'the Fancy'. It refers to the small group of pigeon fanciers who support what is known as the fancy breeds - breeds such as Modena's, Nuns, Archangels and the like - but includes the 'flying' practicioners.

Pigeons as we most of us know, tend to 'circle' when they fly. Flyers, as mentioned above, train kits of five birds to perform manouvers, the most elaborate of which is to get the group flying in a circular horizontal plane with individual birds 'rolling' out in vertical circles and rejoining the kit when immediately another bird rolls out. Thus you have your horizontal circle sitting atop a series of vertical circles that should as near as possible not overlap, but just touch at the edges. I've never seen such a thing done, nor do I know if there are any practicioners of the art left - but that it was once done pleases me greatly.

I should have mentioned above the skinhead of the bird world, the starling. Shouldering it's thuggish way around, leary and uncouth, it still has features of special note. I've known one learn to imitate the mewling of a kitten, and who could forget the huge, huge flocks that used to migrate one way down to Africa in the autumn, then back north in the spring. These flocks sometimes took minutes to pass with millions of birds in them: birds that could be seen gathering on telegraph wires and trees for weeks prior to the big migration south for the winter. How I miss them (and the occasional beautiful rolling shows of flight they would put on). Yes, the starling is a bird that cannot be ignored in any list worthy of note.

[Avatar]

Not into "Fancy" pigeons...genetically engineered monstrosities. On the plus side, only careful and constant breeding keeps those viable...if they ever went feral, their offspring would revert to normative in a generation, two at most. (If they could even survive to breed in the first place.)

--A

[peter]

Same is true of the dog breeds Av isn't it. The natural dog is akin to the pie-dog of Africa (I think that's what they call it), not especially attractive but ideally suited to occupy the particular niche that dogs should naturally occupy.

[Linna Heartbooger]

What a beauty

Cockatiels and Cockatoos are graced with the most engaging personalities. I cared for one who just LOVED being with you. He would cleverly and adeptly unlatch his aviary and fly over to where we were working on the property. Sooo funny and sooo naughty ... and sooo much personality.

Awww, I thought breaking out was a caique thing!!



Buuuut... I'm going to ask if that sweet mischievous cockatoo was a Moluccan, sky!


Love their cute, fluffy faces!

StevieG- share a pic, if not too inconvenient! My first pet was a 'tiel!

[Avatar]

Same is true of the dog breeds Av isn't it. The natural dog is akin to the pie-dog of Africa (I think that's what they call it), not especially attractive but ideally suited to occupy the particular niche that dogs should naturally occupy.

AfriCanis they call it these days: https://www.africanis.co.za/

--A

[Skyweir]

Linna he was a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo .. a really smarty pants and quite the snuggler

Cheeky af and quite the little trickster lol

I had hoped the owner would have abandoned him and the others we looked after, she was a charlatan and in trouble for fraudulently collecting commercial donations on false pretences lol hence the fraud part.

She was a serial con woman but alas the threat of losing her birds was the impetus she needed to pay her bill and recoup the birds.