Parrots

Parrots and the realities of urban life were the focus of the 2003 feature The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a movie which told the tale of how a frustrated homeless musician managed to forge solid relationships with a number of wild parrots.

Based on a true story, the movie tells an inspiring story, one which touches up on how important companionship and reaching out can be, as well as delves into the particulars and peculiarities known to revolve around parrots.

The Avian Welfare Resource Center, a part of the Avian Welfare Coalition, has long asserted that parrots are not domestic animals, not like how cats or dogs are as domestic animals.

Though found in countless homes in different parts of the world, not all parrots are the same with others, with some not even capable of “talking”. Screeching or screaming, however, is something every parrot can do. Also, not all parrots are trainable, with most trained parrots owing their training aptitudes to the skills of trainers and experts.

However, parrots are naturally curious and active, which contributes to their attributed flair as sociable birds.

Many have taken in parrots as pets in the hopes of having an exotic pet that says funny things and does amusing tricks. As many expect these to come from parrots, many have also ended up being frustrated when “parrot realities” come up, with their pets being difficult to manage, biting, screeching and generally making a mess.

As such, it has to be said that parrots, as they were featured in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, remain to be wild animals which thrive in their independence as creatures of Mother Earth.

Serious thought is then in order if you’re mulling about keeping parrots as pets.

Parrot Pictures

Parrot images

Parrot picutre

Parrot image

Parrot Video

Canary Wallpapers

Read more Canary info

Macaw Parrot Wallpapers

Read more Macaw Parrot Wallpapers

Bird playing with cat

Can't have enough of Cat. This budgie even gives kitty a kiss. Awww!

 

Lovely Owl

Ahh, who can resist being caressed on the forehead? It's a sign of affection. And lovely owl is just human—err—owl.

Dancing Bird

A Cockatoo named "Larry Bird" dancing teaches me How To Dougie.

 

Estimated 2000 dead birds found in a Beach in Chile

When one finds a dead bird on the beach, the scenario is often followed with a growing piqued curiosity, questioning what happened to the poor bird. If we’re talking about a responsible person, he/she would inform beach authorities about the dead bird, who in turn would then take the necessary actions geared in handling the decaying dead bird’s body.

It won’t hit news headlines, as is.

But when more than 1 dead bird is found on the beach – say, an estimated 2000 – that’s another story.

Based on the estimates of a natural history director in San Antonio, an estimated 2000 dead birds were found on beaches in Chile. It is believed that what happened the birds is a case of fishermen mistakenly capturing them with their nets, which led to the birds’ to drowning, being unable to fly away.

Spread across an area close to six kilometers or four miles on the beach, the dead birds’ were found scattered on the beaches of Santo Domingo, one of Chile’s coastal cities. The dead birds found included Guanay Cormorants, Gannets, Pelicans and Gray Petrels (mostly).

Jose Luis Brito, a natural history and archeology museum director, is convinced that fishermen “did nothing” when a number of birds got caught in their nets. The act was followed up with letting the fish drown, before their bodies were re-introduced into the sea.

As the needs of man are growing more and more, the incident reminds everyone of just how much mankind’s needs can cause heavy damage to the environment, particularly in the aspect of loss of wildlife due to unfortunate run-ins between men and animals.

To date, reports indicate a move in filing a complaint against fishermen, in relation to the multitude of birds found dead on beaches.

Black-backed Woodpecker – Petition for Endangered Status

Forest fires have always been perceived as “bad”, with many campaigns, programs and advertisements telling and retelling everyone of its risks and dangers.

For the black-backed woodpecker though, post fire environments are the source of a worthy feasts, with treats taking shape in beetle larvae found in burned trees.

Its penchant for such has led to the first federal petition, ever, in seeking recognition of the protection of post-fire habitats, as experts would share.

With four conservation groups filing a petition to the US Interior Department to include the black-backed woodpecker in the Endangered Species Act (in Sierra Nevada, Black Hills of Eastern Wyoming, and Oregon’s Eastern Cascades), burned habitat protection is an eventual on-the rise concern in keeping black-back woodpecker populations in check.

Apart from forest fire suppression protocols, the post-fire salvage operations of logging industries add to the decline of the post-fire habitat needs of the woodpecker, combined with the decline and thinning of green forests in national forests.

"Intensely burned forest habitat not only has no legal protection, but standard practice on private and public lands is to actively eliminate it,” – a quote, taken from the petition.

"When fire and insect outbreaks create excellent woodpecker habitat, salvage logging promptly destroys it."

The black-backed woodpecker is known to have had its fire-killed beetle tastes for millions of years, picking them out from conifer forests in the North American forest areas.

A threat to its natural habitat stands to threaten the species capacity to live on, with a number of experts sharing that it’d be rather reckless to neglect the species’ habitat considerations, given that they’ve been around since the Ice Ages.

Southern Cassowary

True Wild Life | Southern Cassowary | The Southern Cassowary is a large bird that lives in New Guinea and Australia. They are flightless, but equipped with a strong kick. Their numbers continue to decline because of disappearing tropical rainforests and hunting. The Southern Cassowary also known as Double-wattled Cassowary, Australian Cassowary or Two-wattled Cassowary.

In appearance, the Cassowary looks like a short, heavily-built, black and blue Emu, Dromaius novaehollandiae. Both species are indeed closely related, belonging to the family Casuariidae, and both are flightless. The female Southern Cassowary selects a male to breed with and then lays a clutch of large green eggs in a scrape in the ground lined with plant material. Once the eggs are laid, the male is left in charge of the incubation and chick-rearing duties, while the female moves away, and may even breed again with another male. During the breeding season, the parental males are very aggressive, and attacks on humans have been recorded at this time.

The Southern Cassowary feeds mostly on fruit that has fallen to the ground. The Southern Cassowary will also eat anything from snails to small dead mammals. Southern Cassowaries normally feed alone. If two males should meet, they have a stand off where both birds stand tall, fluff up their feathers and rumble at each other until one retreats. If a male and female meet, the male will move away, as the female is dominant.

In parts of its range the Southern Cassowary is still relatively common, but numbers are decreasing because of habitat clearance and collisions with cars. Their fruit diet means they are commonly sighted in commercial orchards and gardens with fruit bearing trees. Interestingly, citrus fruit is not usually eaten. They can also be dangerous if cornered.

Okinawa Rail

True Wild Life | Okinawa Rail | The Okinawa Rail is a flightless bird that only lives on the main island of Okinawa. It is endemic to Okinawa Island in Japan where it is known as the Yanbaru Kuina. Its existence was only confirmed in 1978 and it was formally described in 1981 although unidentified rails had been recorded on the island since at least 1973 and local stories of a bird known as the agachi kumira may refer to this species.

It is a medium-sized and almost flightless rail with short wings and tail, olive-brown upperparts, black underparts with white bars and a red bill and legs. It occurs in subtropical moist forests and in neighbouring habitats. It nests and feeds on the ground but usually roosts in trees. It is classified as an endangered species and is threatened by habitat loss and introduced predators.

The Okinawa Rail  is a poor flyer but it can run rapidly. It spends most of its time on the ground but usually roosts in trees, climbing up to sleep on a branch or sloping trunk. In the morning, it preens and stretches before dropping straight to the ground. It is usually found in dense cover but comes into the open to bathe. It bathes for short bouts of 2-4 minutes before preening for 4-20 minutes. It feeds on lizards, amphibians, snails and large insects such as locusts. Food is mainly taken from the forest floor but may also be taken from shallow water.

The Okinawa Rail is in great danger of disappearing for other reasons: forests clearing and traffic accidents. But the conservation activities have not progressed much. One reason is that nobody really understands how the Okinawa Rail lives. Without knowing well about the creature, like where the Okinawa Rail lives, what it eats, or how it raises its children, and how far it travels, people cannot move forward with the conservation activities. Besides the Okinawa Rail, there are many other kinds of flightless birds that are suffering from the outside animals in which human have brought in.

Great Spotted Kiwi

True Wild Life | Great Spotted Kiwi | The Great Spotted Kiwi, is a species of kiwi endemic to the South Island of New Zealand.  It is the largest of the kiwi.  There are about 22,000 Great Spotted Kiwis in total, almost all in the more mountainous parts of northwest Nelson, the northwest coast, and the Southern Alps. A minority live on islands.

Great Spotted Kiwi are nocturnal, and will sleep during the day in burrows. At night, they feed on invertebrates and will also eat plants. Great Spotted Kiwi breed between June and March. The egg is the largest of all birds in proportion to the size of the bird. Chicks take 75 to 85 days to hatch, and after hatching, they are abandoned by their parents.

Because adult Great Spotted Kiwis are large and powerful, they are able to fend off most predators that attack them, such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, pigs, brushtails and cats, all of which are invasive species in New Zealand. However, dogs are able to kill even adults. Stoats, ferrets, possums, cats and dogs will feed on the eggs and chicks, meaning most chicks die within their first five months of life. Once the Great Spotted Kiwi was also preyed upon by the Haast's Eagle, which is now extinct.

Yellow-Eyed Penguin

True Wild Life | Yellow-Eyed Penguin | The yellow-eyed penguin is one of the few penguin species found north of the Antarctic Ocean, and as it's name suggests, this species of penguin is easily idenitfied by it's yellow coloured eyes and bright yellow band that runs from it's eyes round the back of the yellow-eyed penguin's head. The yellow-eyed penguin is found off the coast of the south island of New Zealand where this species gathers in colonies along the beaches and boulder fields. The yellow-eyed penguin is also found on a few of the islands of the main island including Stewart, Auckland and the Campbell Islands.

The yellow-eyed penguin generally searches for food up 10 miles offshore, and travels (on average) around 15 miles away from the colonies nesting site. The yellow-eyed penguin leaves the colony at dawn and returns the same evening during chick rearing, although may spend 2 or 3 days at sea at other times. The yellow-eyed penguin is one of the larger species of penguin with adult individuals reaching 75cm in height, with the males generally being slightly larger than the female yellow-eyed penguins. The yellow-eyed penguin was thought to have been closely related to the tiny little penguin found in a similar area, although recent research suggests that the two are actually fairly genetically different.

The yellow-eyed penguin is a carnivorous animal, that like all other penguin species, survives on a diet that is only comprised of marine animals. Krill and small crustaceans make up the bulk of the yellow-eyed penguin's diet along with larger organisms including squid and various species of fish. The yellow-eyed penguin is usually found nesting in the forests and scrub that line the New Zealand coast and although historically undisturbed, the yellow-eyed penguin now has a number of land-dwelling predators including cats, dogs and foxes along with rats and weasels that hunt their eggs.

On average, the yellow-eyed penguin breeds once a year, forming pairs that usually remain faithful to one another. The female yellow-eyed penguin lays two eggs in her nest in the forest which are incubated by both parents for up to a couple of months, when only one of the eggs will usually hatch. The yellow-eyed penguin chicks are fed and kept warm by their parents and remain with them until the chicks are nearly a year old. Today, the yellow-eyed penguin listed as an endangered animal with an estimated wild population of less than 4,000 individuals. It is now the rarest penguin in the world due to deforestation and the introduction of mammalian predators.