Week 23 – Busy busy busy
Apologies that this weeks blog is a couple of days late, it’s been a busy couple of days and I just haven’t found time to sit down and write about life at Birdland.
As a result this weeks blog is going to be just the updates for the week.
The Chaco Owlet being raised by Helen is doing great, watch out on Facebook for a chance to help choose the name
The Bartlett’s Bleeding Heart Doves in the Temperate House (formerly the Toucan House) have a chick. The first chick this year didn’t survive but last year Mum & Dad reared 3 and so far so good
The Northern Helmeted Curassow egg in the incubator has started to hatch. As of tonight it had put a small hole in the egg and was calling and rocking away. Hopefully it will be out in the next 24 hours and we will be hand rearing
We also have a Military Macaw egg starting to hatch in the incubator. Again, the plan is to hand rear so we can have another tame parrot for the talks & displays. This one will be a more labour intensive project as it will need feeding every 2 hours from 6am til 12pm (good practice for a soon to be father!)
We removed the Black Necked Swan eggs this week and are going to hand rear these as Mum & Dad haven’t been very successful at their last couple of attempts. Usually they produce 4-5 eggs so we were surprised to find 7 eggs, all of which are fertile and should start to hatch towards the weekend
The Kookaburra egg in the incubator is looking promising and it appears that Mum has eggs in the nest box as well as she hasn’t left the box all week
The Yellow Shouldered Amazon eggs haven’t hatched as yet, we will give them a few more days.
No sign of a chick yet either with Chloe & Myrtle the Humboldts
The King Penguin egg from Missy & Seth has been removed from the incubator as it is infertile
We have 4 Splendid Parakeet eggs and a 4th Snowy Owl egg was laid but found broken. The female continues to sit well despite the heat, she has found the best site for shade to make her nest
Both pairs of Roul Roul Partridges are laying, with the pair in the Temperate House on 5 eggs, and the pair in the Discovery Zone producing 2
Unusually we have both the male & female Golden Pheasant incubating eggs, dad is sat on 7 eggs and mum on at least 3 in separate corners of the aviary. Male pheasants shouldn’t incubate so not sure what’s happening there!
We have moved the pair of Lilac Breasted Rollers from off-show into the aviary boulevard. Intially there was a lot of squabbling but things have now calmed down. A nest box went up yesterday and both birds are displaying and calling and have been seen in the box
The Western Plantain Eater has moved in the Golden Pheasants, with the pair of Red Billed Starlings moving from here to the Finch block.
A male Hammerkop has also gone on display in the round aviary near the penguins
Our female Coscoroba Swan died unexpectedly this week. We are awaiting the results of a post mortem but suspect that she was either egg bound (egg stuck) or had egg peritinitus (egg broken inside her). We are working hard to find a new partner for the male
A female Black Swan is due to arrive tomorrow from Prinknash Abbey
This week we said goodbye to Kath, who has worked in the Gift Shop for 10 years. We also say hello to Emily who is one of a couple of new faces you will see in the Gift Shop
Yesterday we entertained Field Court Infant School, talking about habitats and how birds are adapted to living in them
You may have heard me live on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire this week, answering the age old question, do penguins have knees? The answer is of course yes, you can’t see them buried under all the feathers (no point having knobbly knees on display in the cold of the Antarctic)
Wildlife wise the first Common Blue Damselfly has been seen as has the first May Fly (in June!) A couple of Ravens has been the highlight on the bird front although there are some cracking birds around in the county at the moment, heres hoping something comes our way!
As always thanks for reading and see you next week
