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July 2016
Scarlet macaws simply stunning
New Spix macaw on camera Advice on pairing canaries Spring Saffron cleaning finch done early profiled Top dollar paid out for geese
Budgie problems solved
Bird on the Healthy hand worth food tips two in bush for pets
THIS MONTH IN YOUR MAGAZINE Australasian feathered news in brief 3 Avian vet directory 16 Aviary Marketplace 22 Bird on hand worth two in bush 17-19 Budgies: Unsavoury problems solved 12 Canaries: Pairing up advice 11 Club and avian vet listings 26 Club news 23, 24, 25 Emu poo key for rare plant? 21 Fancy poultry: Big money for geese 13 Finches: Saffron very aggressive 10
T he news that a Spix’s macaw was photographed in the wild is absolutely mind blowing — see adjacent story — given that in 2000 parrot experts said the bird was extinct in the wild. It is doubtful that the photos taken on a mobile phone are of another species because there is no way BirdLife International would veryify them if there was any doubt. Moves are afoot to protect the bird and its habitat but one has to ask whether it should be caught and included in the captive breeding program, where the gene pool is very small. That scenario will be debated by the experts and it will be interesting to see what the outcome is but in the meantime we should give thanks that the latest-seen bird had the good sense to show itself. ■ EDUCATION ADVOCATED: This month an article by Glen Holland, director of Victoria’s Healesville Sanctuary — Bird on hand worth two in bush — advocates educating the public on bird conservation and it’s an article well worth reading. Aviculturists don’t do enough to help threatened bird species and when those birds are assisted the people responsible seldom spread the word far enough.
EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING Lloyd Marshall Telephone.............................03 5983 2566 Email................. lloyd@talkingbirds.com.au Website .............www.talkingbirds.com.au PO Box 216 Balnarring VIC 3926 Australia DEADLINES FOR ADVERTISING BOOKINGS AND COPY August 2016 edition Display advertisements .................July 18 Aviary marketplace ........................July 25 SUBSCRIPTIONS Subscriptions to Talking Birds, which cost $4 a month anywhere in the world, can be arranged by filling out the subscription form on the final page of this edition and sending it together with the appropriate payment or credit card details. The form can also be found at www.talking birds.com.au COPYRIGHT Copyright for all editorial copy and photographs published in Talking Birds remains with the author or photographer and cannot be reproduced in any media without the author s/photographer s permission.
Forthcoming events Health: Beautiful birds in Hawaii Hornbill beaks take place of ivory House sparrow came from India International feathered news in brief Parrots: Qld. convention report, pix Parrots: Scarlet macaws stunning Parrots: Seedlings to help red-tails Parrots: Spring cleaning done early Parrots: Trackers assist white-tails Pet birds: Healthy eating tips, tricks
25 15 4 20 4 23 8 21 5-6 16 14
COMMENT Think about it, if you asked your non-bird keeping mates what they thought of the Save the Gouldian Fund most of the answers would be along the lines of: “What’s a Gouldian and why should we save it?” Some aviculturists assist the Gouldian mob and some help the black-throated finch, the swift parrot and black cockatoos. By assisting threatened birds we would be doing something good for those species but more importantly in my opinion we would be laying the groundwork for the day when we are attacked, so that we would be able to tell the anti-aviculture objectors that we don’t just keep and breed birds for our amusement, that we care about all birds and that we do tangible things to help threatened species to survive. ■ SALE FIX: Victorian canary people, who have been unable to publicly sell birds this year due to the ban on selling exotics apart from via their homes, have gone onto the front foot by organising a sale this month at a southern Melbourne bird dealer’s premises — see advertisement on page 22. Once again, this publication has something for most bird keepers. I hope you enjoy it.
— Lloyd Marshall
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CONSERVATION ROUND-UP
Spix macaw seen in wild
A WILD Spix’s Macaw was photographed on a mobile phone in Brazil last month by a teenager who was looking for the bird with her mother. The species had not been seen in the wild since 2000, when it was believed that the last wild bird had died. The amazing piece of footage of the bird flying through trees was captured by 16-year-old Damilys Oliveira. Ms Oliveira was fulfilling the dying wish of her great-grandfather, who died last year at the age of 94, still yearning to see the macaw one day grace the skies near his home
town of Curaçá in the Bahia region of Brazil. Ms Oliveira’s mobile phone footage has been put on YouTube by BirdLife International and generated an expedition by Brazilian federal environment experts to locate the bird and help preserve its last domain. Pedro Develey, head of the Brazilian Society for the Conservation of Birds, said he believed the bird had been freed by a poacher trying to avoid arrest. The last truly wild bird prior to the latest sighting disappeared in 2000 when BirdLife International said the species was extinct in the wild due to illegal trapping for the pet trade.
Bird found after 178 years
ORNITHOLOGISTS are flying high after a bird believed to be extinct in Nepal was spotted for the first time in 178 years. Hem Sagar Baral, country manager for Zoological Society London and his colleagues were on a 10-day bird watching holiday when they had a chance sighting of red-faced liocichlain, pictured left, in the Darhakhani Chisapanitar forest in Upardang Gadi, Chitwan district. “We were excited when we first spotted a pair of red-faced liocichla in the forest. The sighting of the bird after more than a century and a half has raised hopes of finding more such species that have not been sighted for a very long time,” Mr Baral said. The species, recorded at an altitude of 1800m from sea level, prefers habitats in leaves of large trees and bamboos. The first sighting of this species, which belongs to the babbling laughing thrush family, was recorded in east Nepal by a British ornithologist in 1838.
Palm cockatoo in jeopardy
AUSTRALIA’S palm cockatoo is being put at risk by proposed bauxite mines. The Cape York palm cockatoo, Australia’s largest cockatoo, is listed as vulnerable under Australia’s federal environment laws. Around 3000 mature birds are thought to exist and numbers are declining. It is considered a distinct sub-species of the palm cockatoo, which includes another sub-species found in Papua New Guinea. One of the key threats facing the bird is loss of habitat from mining bauxite to make aluminium, according to advice given to the environment
Quail latest craze
A SMALL bird has assumed heavyweight significance in Zimbabwe. Thousands of unemployed people are looking to quail as deliverance from the dire economic conditions in the southern African country. While quail farming is already big in countries like India, few Zimbabweans aside from bird experts and rural people knew about the shy bird until a few months ago, when rumors spread that quail has medicinal value. Now it has gained huge economic,
minister, Greg Hunt last year by the government’s independent threatened species scientific committee. The advice recommended that Mr Hunt should “ensure impacts from mining activity do not further reduce the areas of available breeding and foraging habitat” and the advice also found 85 per cent of the bird’s woodland habitats were covered by mining or exploration leases. Andrew Picone, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, said threats to the palm cockatoo were examples of why a new set of stronger federal environmental laws were needed.
ODD SPOT political, religious, medicinal, and entertainment value in a country whose official statistics agency says most citizens survive on just one dollar a day. Backyards have been turned into breeding zones by people flocking to cash in on the craze. And a new breed of poachers is risking lion attacks by sneaking into Zimbabwe’s national parks to hunt quail, environment minister Oppah Muchinguri told Parliament last month.
PHOTO: KRYSTAL SOWTER. COVER: SCARLET MACAW PAIR. SEE: STUNNING SCARLETS PAGE 7.
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