After morning meeting, I grabbed plates, certain birds get a.m. plates, and headed downstairs. I then went through the whole basement and pulled night plates, some birds get night plates. I noticed where birds were to see if anything had changed and everything was pretty much the same:
100 side:
Guam Kingfisher
Tawny Frogmouth
Magpie of some variety
Ground Dove
Mariana's Dove
Jambu Dove
Piping Guan
Pygmy Falcon
Saipan Golden White-eye
and a pair of Bulbuls
200 side:
Jack, the hawk-headed parrot who misbehaved on display so now resides in the basement
Superb Starling
Partridge
Guam Kingfisher chicks
Mouse bird
Rosy Starling
Pekin Robin
Laughing Thrush
Jambu Dove
Tinamou
Golden-breasted starling
Mariana's Dove
Blue-bellied roller
Kookaburra
Magnificent Ground Pidgeon
(I could be missing some here)
300 side:
Blue-bellied roller
Bearded Barbet
Tragopan
Horned Guan
Congo Peafowl
Bali Mynah
Piping Guan
That is all of them I believe. I check on the birds as I pull plates and then hand out the plates. This morning I gave plates to the Tinamou, there are six that I believe were all chick hatches from last summer, the piping guan, he gets medication because he has arthritis in his left foot, and to the other piping guan pair, as well as the congo peafowl. Next, I change waters in all of the cages. This process just involves cleaning each bowl briefly, rinsing, and filling it back to the brim. It is easy to just fill the bowl the entire way because some birds, the kingfishers and bali mynahs usually indulge, enjoy bathing in their water dish. While changing waters, I was bringing a full croc of water back to one cage and noticed a mouse bird sitting in the bowl of Tinamou food trying to swallow a big hunk of dogfood (the tinamou get soaked dog food for protein and other nutrients). I stood there and watched him try and do this. Soon, he noticed that I was standing there and he promptly flew away. Another interesting fact, the trick to changing the water in the blue-bellied roller cage, the bird on the 200 side in particular, is to not make eye contact with the bird. Once you make eye contact with the bird, she, I think, gets upset and will fly at and peck your hand as you try to change the water. It took me a few times to realize this. After that, I changed footbaths, the zoo utilizes footbaths when going in and out of the cages and rooms to keep the floors clean so if birds were to escape they would hopefully not contract anything. Next, I was asked to clean several cages and lay new shavings down. I started by cleaning the single piping guan. He was kept in a cage on the 100 side last summer and would begin his clucking when I changed waters on that side and walked past his cage. His clucking is interesting, it is a gutteral cluck that kind of has a chirp to it. It is difficult to describe, piping, like the name suggests, is a good adjective for it. As I was sweeping up his dirty shavings, he began doing this same routine. He also stretches out his neck and lifts up his beautiful crest as he clucks. His pale, light blue head feathers normally lay down on his head and almost look like slicked back hair. He was not too skittish as I moved about his cage and swept and didn't seem too stressed. I next cleaned the Bali Mynah cage with the pair of these birds. They were rather jumpy and nervously moved when I swept. My strategy being to sweep up the front of the cage so the birds can stay far away from me in back, then slowly switching to the back so the birds can fly to the front of the cage. Then, I move back to the front, and they move back to the back, and I finish up sweeping and throw down new shavings. I moved on to the congo peafowl next and found it easy because this pair is located in two connected cages. I simply shut the connecting doors and cleaned one side, and then switched. The male in this pair, a younger male, likes to act tough, approach you slowly, and then jump at you, but retreat in mid air and not actually claw you. It is interesting. Also, he will only do this if you are attempting to place a food or water dish. As soon as you enter the cage, he will be far from you and unlikely to try the funny business. I finished up by cleaning two separate roller cages, all of which were rather flighty and nervous, and then I cleaned the pair of piping guans' cage. These two birds were rather calm. I moved in the cage, they moved away from me as I cleaned, and I left. They bascially walked away from me rather than flapping or jumping or running. Between cleaning, I had to clarify which cages I was to clean so I looked for my coworker, who, turns out, was searching for a peacock nest and was away. During the meantime, I sat down upstairs near exhibit 26, the open exhibit containing cardinals, horned guans, a variety of ducks, blue crowned motmots, and sunbitterns, and looked at the horned guans. I wanted to see their interaction because the west keeper (in charge of 26) said that they had been preening each other and getting along just fine. We just introduced a female to the male we already had and evidently at first, they fought, but once the male was removed, the female situated, and the male reintroduced, it worked perfectly. I didn't end up seeing too much interaction between them but did see the two sunbitterns sitting on the railing. The male sunbittern likes to meander lackadaisically through the exhibit calling repeatedly. He sometimes likes to sit on the railing, or just jump into the public area all together to make sure and walk slowly around that area and call too. He seems pretty oblivious. The female on the other hand, follows him, and even displays herself to him, in an attempt to mate, and he will do nothing. He just keeps droning in his almost melancholy call. Though, today, I saw them on the railing and the two were sitting quite close. He even began inching toward her. His call changed a bit to a series of murmurs and it looked promising until she began ignoring him and slowly moving away. My fellow keeper calls him a lost cause.
After lunch, I had the privalege of going to Cyprus Swamp, the flight cage, and helping to trim plants and pull bind weed. I did this for a couple of hours with little interaction with the birds save one incident. A female pintail duck began quacking rapidly and shaking her head and then rubbing her head on her feathers and walking quickly. A male, presumably her mate, was following her but didn't seem concerned with her actions. I noticed another male walking towards her, presumably wanting to mate, and he kind of chased her off. Although, later, she was making the same quacking sounds and the second male was not around. I mentioned it to the CS keeper but she said she hadn't noticed and it could be that she was chased off of her nest.
I took a break and then returned to the basement to pull day plates and hand out night plates. There are less birds in the basement than there were last summer so pulling plates is not too difficult. Also, there are less night plates as well. The birds that get night plates are the kingfishers, the pygmy falcons, the tawny frogmouths and a cage with some handicapped birds and another cage with a lot of variety of birds. A juevenille mouse bird that is with the handicapped birds gets wax worms because of their high fat content and the others get a lot of dead mice or dead baby mice. I guess I could specify what goes on food plates. Doves and a lot of the birds tend to get fruit mix and/or pellets. Some carnivorous birds get meat and dog food while others get pinkies (dead baby mice.) A lot of birds get lettuce too and Jack, the parrot in the basement, gets a big hunk of fruit each day like banana or orange. The horned guans love avocado and the piping guan who receives medicine loves it on banana or avocado. Also, some birds, such as weavers, get bird seed.
I noticed at one point during the day, when I was in the nursery, that a hooded merganser chick, a hooded merganser duck is a type of diving duck, was snuggled up with a black neck swan chick. They were adorable and the smaller merganser was snuggled close to the swans voluptuous white down. Most of the time, species are not intermingled too much, but it was interesting to see these two getting along.
I had given Jack a super worm, some kind of giant meal worm I suppose, and he will grab it with his foot, bite it in half, often revealing the gooey innards of the worm, crunch it up, take another couple of bites and enjoy it thoroughly. He does not, however, prefer crickets.
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