I lyke burds

G'day! 

Hey guys! Things have been pretty awesome this side of the world! I just finished my first week at the zoo working with the birds.
I really like the bird section a lot. Yeah I know, real surprising :P
I've become pretty good friends with one of the zoo keepers Charlie, and he has been giving me lifts home and such to save money. He offered to drive me to work on Thursday morning, however, I have to be there by 8:30-9 and he has to be there by 6-6:30. Blehhh haha But I decided to show initiative and took the early ride there. The bird and mammal supervisor, James, was also there preparing food. So they basically gave me all the ingredients to make food for most of the birds. It was pretty fun. I got to prepare food for the emus, finches, fig parrots, lorikeets, ect. While I was preparing the food, Charlie and James went out into the park to feed all the birds in the park and bring back the old bowls.

The work was pretty easy, you just cut up lots of fruits and vegetables into cubes for the bigger birds or you grate the fruits/vegetables for the smaller birds. The only real problem I had were the damn sweet potatoes. I don't know what they do here, but there sweat potatoes are on steroids. They are basically the length of my forearm and can be up to twice the width of my arm. They are basically a full meal within itself. I have never seen them so huge. Crazy. So they can sometimes be pretty hard to cut since they are pretty cold when they come out of the refrigerator. These birds eat like kings, I swear to god.  They definitely have a better diet than I did in college :/
So most of the bird work is food prep, cleaning, taking bowls away, giving them new food, and random odd jobs.
The zoo has a quite an array of birds ranging from pelicans, to cassowaries, to lorikeets, as well as brolgas. It's cool to get to see them all and learn more about them.

Pelicans
 
I really like the pelicans, the zoo has three. One male and two females, all of them had accidents that requires them to stay in captivity. The male is quite a ham, he goes right to the front of the exhibit and opens his mouth blocking the females. He then rubs his beak on the nearby trees to "sharpen" his beak. So I sometimes get to feed them which is fun. Peliy, the male, is a brat and gets angry if you feed any of the other pelicans and will start biting at the trees and such. Sometimes the pelicans aren't very hungry and they'll just let the fish drop to the bottom. So I was watching the fish fall then all of a sudden I saw the fish starting to thrash in the murky water! I was like, Woahhh Wtf??. Haha i was scared but apparently there are some huge eels that just bro chill there. I guess they came from a nearby river or something and they just nom on all the fish the pelicans don't eat. Not a bad life. There are also some turtles that chill out there with the pelicans. They are really pretty birds and I couldn't help but think of Finding Nemo.

Brolga
 
The zoo also has three brolgas, which are basically Australian cranes. They are really cool looking and really tall. They also have a really cute/cool trumpet call. We have one, Billy, with an exhibit with some wallabies and invader ducks. He's kinda of a brat and will try to nip at you if you are you in his exhibit. So when he gets near you, you're suppose to turn your back to him and push him away then he'll kinda wander away. So we were cleaning his food trough and bringing him more food and as we were leaving he gave me a little nip. It didn't hurt at all it was kinda just a light bite from more up his beak. Oh Billy.

We then fed the other two which is a mating couple. The male is very protective of the female so we can't even go in the exhibit to change their food. The door is equipped so you can turn it and there will be another gate to keep them closed while you change their food. While I was watching the procedure, the male snuck up behind me and nipped me pretty hard. When they really want to get you they, they can grab you with the tip of their beak and actually twist it a little bit. I thought I got stung by a bee or something. But I can't get too mad, he was just trying to defend his mate. After that, I wasn't really nervous of Billy anymore. Billy doesn't really mean any harm. Later, I cleaned Billy's little pond. He totally wasn't near the pond at all until he saw that it was emptying then he decides that it's the perfect time to stand in them middle of it. I guess he's fascinated by the suction of the water flowing out. He would stick his beak near the drain and then lift and shake his head. While I was waiting for it to drain, Nakeisha was walking by and said Hi. She asked what I was doing and I told her I was going to clean the pond. She saw that he was in the pond and asked how I was going to get him out without getting nipped. I told her it was no big deal and I just put my back to Billy and was like, "Oh excuse me Billy, Pardon me, But you will have to move now!". He seemed a little indignant, but he moved away. So now I really like Billy, I think I might just like his name. Billy just seems like such a funny name for some reason. He also shed a secondary feather, which is freaking huge, so I obviously put it in my hair at work and pretended I was Australian Pocahontas. Some of the zookeepers were making fun of me, but I'm sure they were just jealous :P

No... We must DANCE

The Brolga are actually known for their mating dance. While we were taking pictures, Charlie saw the Billy really wanted to dance. So we danced together. It was a pretty glorious moment for me.

Cockatoos
 
The zoo also carries quite a few cockatoos. We have an aviary that has many beautiful black cockatoos and pink cockatoos. We usually go into there to change their "browse" or enrichment branches and change their food. They are definitely beautiful, but they are also really loud! They also spazz all the time. You'll walk to side of the aviary, and they'll screech and fly to the other side. Then you walk back to do something and they'll screech and fly the other way. I mean, how long have they been there? Is it really necessary to have a panic attack every time?

They also have 3 white cockatoos that they display around the park. One in the front and two near the cafe area. They are really pretty and some of them can speak pretty well. Charlie, the zookeeper, and Taz the cockatoo are friends. It's cute to see Taz cuddle up on Charlie's neck. At the end of the day, Charlie and I took the white cockatoos to their night roost in the emu exhibit.

Charlie and I also have done some enrichment items for the white cockatoos where we get some cardboard and mash it up into a shape and put treats in it! We also gave them some ice cubes to play with.

Taz playing with her new toy

Taz destroying her new toy

Emus

So emus are probably one of the funniest birds ever. I freaking love these emus.

Curious male saying Good Mornin'

The zoo has a male and female. They are so tall! When the female stretches out her neck she's almost taller than me! The one thing I love about animals is that they all have different personalities. You have to bring a rake in to the exhibit because female basically hates humans and always tests the new person that walks in. So she'll come up to you and try to bully/kick you, but then you push her away with the rake or hold it above her head she'll back off. She also makes this drumming noise that's really interesting. No one really likes my imitation though :c Emus gauge "danger" based on height, so if you have something that is taller than her then she'll back off and try again later. The male is the total opposite. He loves humans, almost a little too much. I was raking some leaves and he came to check me out. Then he started to get real low to the ground and kinda started bobbing. I was like, Uhhh okay..? and petted him a little bit. Then the zookeeper is like, "uh oh, He really really likes you!". So basically the male was trying to court me and getting ready to mount me.
 

 ohhhh myyyyyy.

I guess he was really attracted to my very sexy hiking/working boots. I mean who isn't? :p So you basically have to watch out for the female to kick the shit out of you or the male to hump you. NBD.

Kookaburra
 
We also have a birds of prey aviary that has 2 species of kookaburra, the laughing one and the blue-winged one. They are really cool birds. The laughing kookaburra has the most interesting call: Lawling kookaburra

So they all chill on this one sign and all do their call. The blue-winged call isn't as strong as the laughing one, but he tries. It's funny, the kookaburra is really oddly proportioned so their head look way to big for their little body and their beak is huge too. But I must say, I do love their nursery song.
Kookaburra song

Spoonbill
 
The bird of prey also has a couple spoonbills that are always freaking out and flying around for no real reason. It's kinda funny, I'm not even close to them raking some leaves, and then they'll just balk and fly to this little roof thing.

Bush Thick-Knees
 
There are also some of these bush thick-knees that are about as tall as my knees. They have huge eyes and are always glaring at you. They look so angry all the time, and if you get too close they start hissing at you hardcore. They are really grumpy birds, but funny grumpy.

 They have a couple in the cockatoo aviary and there is one female that is nesting and she'll just sit in one spot totally vertical and still. By doing this, she thinks I can't see her so I try to be respectful and play along like I can't see her under the very thin bush/browse. There are also a couple of owls but I haven't done much with them.

Parrots 
 
There is also a Rainforest Aviary! It's full of really beautiful birds like a ton of rainbow lorikeets, eclectus parrots, glossy ibis (i think), and few more. The lorikeets have the highest pitch call, it pierces right through your eardrum. Especially when they get excited around dinner time. We have 1 male electus parrot and 2 female electus parrots. They are interesting because the male and females have very different coloration with the males being bright green the the females red with hints of blue. The male, Eddie, really loves one of the female zookeepers Irene. When we went in, he swoops down onto her shoulder and cuddles against her neck and grooms her a bit. It's really cute and sweet.

The lorikeets are really beautiful too. At night, I help feed them dinner which is a nectar mixture. They get soo excited when they know it's coming, they start screeching like madness and will all come down. So I get the hold the bowl with all the nectar and I had like 20 lorkieets on me!! It was amazing! I love feeding the lorkieets c:

Cassowary
 
Last, but definitely not least, is the ancient cassowary. These birds are really amazing looking. They have such bright colors on their throat, black bodies, and this large, curved horn on their head. They still aren't really sure what the horn is used for, at scientist theorize that it was used for defense against running in the bush from plants, dominance displays for females, and even a sound amplifier. They are in the same family as the emu and the ostrich, they are the third tallest and second heaviest. They are usually pretty shy in the wild, but if provoke, they can give you a mean kick that can cause a lot of damage. They are really strong. The zoo has 2 cassowaries, an adult female, Xena, and a juvenile male Marbo (?). Xena is pretty nice, although we are not allowed to go into her exhibit, we can still hand-feed her. She loves grapes and kiwis c: I like Xena a lot. James, the Bird and Mammal Supervisor, does a lot of conservation work with the Cassowaries in captivity. He's basically in charge of designing a captive breeding program for these birds. He has the studbook and he gets together with other zookeepers and scientist to figure out the best way to get more viable young. James was nice enough to show me his research and how it was written out and stuff. It related a lot to Demographics and Genetics (Shout out to Ruth and Marianna!!!) So I told him about the beetles, experience, and my experiment. So it was cool to be able to share that knowledge and see how it is incorporated into conservation work!! Yay!!!

Xena Warrior Cassowary