Bird ownership proves tough commitment

The closure of a parrot sanctuary in B.C. has literally brought a problem home to roost for a Winnipeg couple who didn't truly understand what they were in for when they first got a cockatoo.
               

Jan and Gord owned Sydney for 17 years before sending her to the World Parrot Refuge in 2011. They believed their pet, which had developed worrying habits, would be happier where she could fly, forage and be with her own kind.

But sanctuary owner Wendy Huntbatch died earlier this year, and now a massive parrot relocation, the largest Canada has ever seen, is underway. Workers at the Greyhaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary in B.C. are caring for the approximately 600 birds and looking for new homes for them.

600 birds without a home

Jan and Gord flew to the West Coast to reclaim their bird and they and their old pet are now struggling to adjust to Sydney's return.

Sydney, who could live more than 30 years, has attacked Jan, biting her twice, and the family dogs cower in the basement for hours after the cockatoo lets go with one of its ear-splitting screams.

Experts divided on parrots as pets

She's dealt with people who hoard birds, birds left in abandoned apartments, birds with post-traumatic stress from abuse and birds depressed by the death of their owner.

There is no reliable information on parrot ownership in Canada, but the American Pet Products Association conducted a survey in 2015 that suggested there are 14 million birds living in homes across the U.S.

There is also a lot of debate about whether parrots should be kept as pets. Organizations such as the Avian Welfare Coalition in the U.S. argue parrots belong in the wild, where they can interact with their flock and fly each day. Keeping them caged in a home causes anxiety and distress.

Hawk Weekend sees birds, people migrate through Duluth

Beyond an emerald canopy, the lake sparkled like brilliant sapphires in the late-summer sun. But none of the dozens of people on Hawk Ridge was looking that way on Sunday. Their eyes were on the sky.

          

"It's just beautiful," said Barry Bast, who came from Manitowoc, Wis., with his wife for the annual Hawk Weekend Festival.

This weekend marked the height of the annual bird migration that brings 75,000 raptors and 200,000 birds of other sorts to Duluth's skies, a treat for birders or anyone with an avian appreciation.

Duluth marks a good stopover point for many traveling birds looking to ride some thermals before they continue soaring south for the winter. The lake acts as a net, catching bald eagles, broad-winged hawks, sharp-shinned hawks and lots more.

The observatory has a few real nets, too, and just before noon Sunday a crowd gathered to see a recently banded red-tailed hawk get released back to the skies.

It was Bast who gave the bird a gentle toss, letting go of the talons and eliciting some oohs and ahhs from spectators as the hawk spread its wings and grabbed some warm air to glide on.

Though Bast said he and his wife can see red-tailed hawks in their eastern Wisconsin backyard, the appeal of Hawk Ridge was too strong to keep them at home.

Obviously, it's not just birds who migrate through the Twin Ports this time of year, as the hundreds of folks passing along the hillside show.

Asleep on the job – how birds manage it

Like most animals, birds also need to get their daily amount of sleep. Certain birds like swifts, songbirds, sandpipers and seabirds do not get the adequate amount of sleep since they are airborne day and night. So scientists assumed they are capable of sleeping while still in flight.

To verify their assumption, researchers fitted 14 red-breasted frigatebirds with miniature brain activity monitors and found that they are capable of sleeping mid-flight. The study found that the birds sleep for an average of 41 minutes per day, even while they are in flight. They take quick 12-second naps, usually using only half their brain but sometimes all of it.

Birds exhibit two forms of sleep: slow-wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep), just like mammals. Slow-wave sleep can alternate between both hemispheres of the brain but REM sleep occurs simultaneously in both. In slow-wave sleep, the eye that is connected to the active hemisphere remains open. This allows the bird to sleep but still remain aware of its environment. If it isn't necessary for the bird to watch its environment, slow-wave sleep that involves both hemispheres takes control. REM sleep, which causes reduction in muscle tone, isn't likely when the bird is in flight, the study found.

Co-author of the study Niels Rattenborg ,from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, reportedly said, "Some people thought that all their sleep would have to be unihemispheric otherwise they would drop from the sky. But that's not the case – they can sleep with both hemispheres and they just continue soaring."

Has Leighton Buzzard run out of birds?

Will Leighton-Linslade Town Council get in a flap if it has run out of bird names for new streets in the town?



The council has been asked for suggestions for the 75 new homes planned for the Pratts Pit development off Billington Road.

Previous new streets in the area included Kestrel Way, Hawfinch Grove, Fieldfare and Kingsfisher Drive.

Central Beds Council has written to the town council looking for four further names. Anne Smith, of CBC, said: “The street names for the last few phases have been based around a bird theme.

“It would appear that I have exhausted the list of names the list of names the town council originally put forward.

“Would the town council like to propose any further bird names or any other suitable proposals?”

The council’s planning and transport committee will be considering ideas.

For bird watchers in Pune

From dawn to dusk, they will have their eyes glued to the sky—looking out for all species of birds and keeping a record of them— engaging themselves in a race to beat other teams who are on a similar pursuit. This is the Pune bird race, which will be held on January 24 in the city, a unique competition wherein people passionate about bird watching, and not just ornithologists, but from different walks of life will come together to beat one another in the count of birds they have collected over the day.


Some of the rare bird species that have been recorded during the Pune Bird Races in the past include Isabelline Wheatear, Northern Goshawk, Sirkeer Malkoha, Mottled Wood owl, Eurasian Wryneck Common Buzzard, Bonelli’s Eagle, Greater Spotted Eagle and Eurasian Thick Knee, among others. “With well over 250 bird species recorded over the years in and around this city, and with a rising band of enthusiastic birdwatchers and photographers, Pune sure is a ‘bird hotspot’,” says Patil.

For the first time ever, Cornell scientists have tracked 118 species of birds migrating throughout the Western Hemisphere. The analyses’ results were published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Birds in Trouble

A visit to the California Academy of Sciences, located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, speaks volumes about the disaster that has befallen birds with the spread of humanity. A maze of narrow corridors in the scientific collections leads an explorer to the Ornithological Collection. There you will find a cabinet with a sign: “Extinct Birds.”


A well-known scientist, Warwick Kerr, thought that by hybridizing African and Brazilian bees he might be able to create a strain that was both calm and yielded a rich lode of honey. But before Kerr could do the experiment, a Brazilian beekeeper visiting Kerr’s lab deliberately allowed some of the African bees to escape. That beekeeper’s motives are unknown, but besides possibly hastening the exit of Spix’s macaws, he has been responsible for the deaths of numerous human beings.

In a poignant twist, the last known wild male Spix’s macaw was discovered in 1990 paired with a female, but the female was not of his own species. The male Spix was trying to reproduce with was a female blue- winged macaw. The mismatched couple did mate, and she even laid eggs, but, as one might expect, the eggs were infertile.

More than seventy Spix’s macaws now live in captive breeding programs run by conservationists. To counter the risk of losing genetic variability due to inbreeding, individuals have been exchanged between various institutions in an effort to maintain their genetic diversity.