Category Archives: Bird

Bird

Andean Cock of the Rock

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Andean Cock of the Rock_6

About the Andean cock of the rock, Wikipedia states “The nests are often constructed from the saliva of the females mixed in with vegetable matter and mud.”

“often”

This means that nests could also be otherwise constructed. Maybe sometimes it’s not mud. Glue could work well. Maybe sometimes it’s not vegetable matter. They’re on record as occasionally eating reptiles, so maybe sometimes it’s meat. Maybe they just super glue a bunch of snakes together and lay their eggs in that.

So many possibilities.

Bird

Duck

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Duck_1

Which side of a duck has the most feathers?
The outside.

Why did the duck fly south for the winter?
Because it was too far to walk.

A man in a movie theater notices what looks like a duck sitting next to him. “Are you a duck?” asked the man, surprised. “Yes.” “What are you doing at the movies?” The duck replied, “Well, I liked the book.”

A duck waddles into a card shop, he waddles his way to the front desk asking the clerk, Do you got any tape? The clerk replies, No. So the duck waddles away. The very next day at the same time the same duck waddles into the Card Shop he waddles right up to that same clerk asking him, Do you have any tape? The clerk looking irritated replying in a stern voice,No! We are a card shop we sell cards not tape! And if you ask me again I will nail your bill to the counter! So the duck just waddles away. At the same time the next day the Duck is waddling into that same card shop He waddles right up to that same clerk asking him, do you have any nails? The clerk says,no. Then the duck replied good!! So do you have any tape?

What did the duck do after I told her all these jokes?
I thought she’d quack up, but instead she just barely tolerated my presence as I took this photo.

Bird

Maleo

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Maleo

More than a year ago, I won a special guided tour of the Bronx zoo at a fund raiser for another zoo. Actually using that tour voucher turned out to be incredibly difficult, with me going through three different people at the Bronx Zoo until I got one that stayed working there long enough to actually get things scheduled and solid until I actually got there. However, once I got to that point, things were great.

As most of you know by now, I am most interested in seeing as many of the critically endangered species as I can before they are (inevitably, I feel) gone. Thus, I’m a bit difficult as a zoo guest, because I don’t really care about the big impressive animals. I mean, don’t get me wrong, tigers are pretty awesome … but I’ve seen a *lot* of tigers by now. No, when I go somewhere new, I want to see that zoo’s pet projects – the animals I can’t see anywhere else (sometimes literally; some species are extinct in the wild and only exist at a single zoo). I am also interested in zoo history, but mostly, it’s about the weird, rare, little critters.

This is the maleo. These birds are from Indonesia where, fortunately, they are protected. However, their numbers are dropped and the last census – taken over a decade ago – had them pegged at 4,000-7,000 breeding pairs. Fortunately, conservation breeding is working, and we’re getting more of them out there, now that we know how.

What’s with the “know how” bit? Birds are birds, right?

Well … you know bird eggs have to be kept at a certain temperatures if you want little birds to pop out of them? You know how most birds sit on their eggs, with a few weird ones choosing to incubate in compost piles like alligators do? Not the maleo.

Nope, these critters live in Indonesia, which are volcanic islands … so these birds incubate in hot lava. Well, hot as compared to air temperature. It’s quite cool lava compared to, well, lava. Okay, they lay their eggs near thermal vents that are heated by lava, but it’s practically the same thing, right?