October 7th, 2008 by Gypsy

Photo: Wild Quaker Parrots in Flight Over Midwood, Brooklyn
How did they get here? It’s a long story!

Attention all Urban Parrot fans: the next Wild Brooklyn Parrot Safari will happen on Saturday, November 8th, 2008, at 12 Noon. All interested wild parrot fans should meet at Brooklyn College’s Hillel Gate, which is at the intersection of Hillel Place and Campus Road. Our tour runs in two sections. You can attend either section, or both, depending on how many wild parrots you’d like to see!

Please e-mail me if you want to attend, so I know how many folks are coming. Note: there is no rain date for this trip. If we’re rained out, please join us in December.

Wild Parrot Safari — First Section (Brooklyn College): 12:00 Noon to 1:30PM
At noon, we’ll inspect the Brooklyn Parrots’ “Ellis Island.” Their large nests around the soccer field represents the first major colony in Brooklyn. The site is easy to get to via public transportation. Just take the Number 2 train (Seventh Avenue IRT) to the end of the line, walk one block Southwest on Hillel Street past the new Starbucks, and look for the main Brooklyn College date. The tour begins at the entrance at Noon sharp. Allow some extra time, given that the MTA is doing lots of construction/train re-routing on weekends. Driving instructions are available at Brooklyn College’s main Web site. Parking is fairly easy to come by in the neighborhood. If you’re late, just call me: I’ll give you directions so that you can meet up with us if the tour is already in progress.

Wild Parrot Safari — Second Section (Green-Wood Cemetery): 2:30PM-5PM.
Due to popular demand, our monthly tour will run an optional “second section.” After getting our share of the raucous antics of the Brooklyn College Parrots, at approximately 1:45 PM, our group will walk to the Q Train (BMT) station at Avenue H and journey to Green-Wood Cemetery, where we will observe the late-afternoon antics of the parrots residing there. If you just want to see the Green-Wood parrots, show up at 2:30 PM and we’ll be there. To get to Green-Wood, take the R Train to 25th Street and walk one block East to 25th and 5th Avenue.

What to Bring/What to Wear
Please bring a photo ID (this is required by Brooklyn College Security). Bring binoculars and a camera if you’d like to immortalize your wild parrot-watching experience. The weather will be warm if not hot, and we’ll be exposed to the wind and possibly strong sun, so bring a hat/sunscreen if you have sensitive skin. I ordinarily do not cancel the tour unless the forecast is for sustained rain in which birds will not fly.

Please feel free to wear anything except bright orange (Monk Parrots freak out when you show them something orange: in fact orange tags are one of the best ways to convince Monk Parrots to build away from electrical infrastructure). Wear green, blue, white, but orange will drive away the birds.

This Tour is Free, But the Parrots Are Hungry!
The Wild Parrot Safari is free - if you wish to help your hungry urban feathered friends, bring some bird seed: trust me, the parrots won’t soon forget the gesture. Wild monk parrots also appreciate “real parrot food,” especially unshelled peanuts, sliced apples, and raw sunflower seeds. Finch food or millet are always welcomed by our hungry urban “peeps.”

See you in wild, exotic Brooklyn!

Steve Baldwin, Webmaster, BrooklynParrots.com
steve@brooklynparrots.com
646-361-2879 (phone)

October 5th, 2008 by Gypsy

Build An Outdoor Aviary
Build a beautiful outdoor aviary for your feather companions
By Rebecca Sweat

In general, outdoor aviaries are much more spacious than traditional cages, and they allow birds more space to move around and exercise. They offer a more natural environment and give birds exposure to fresh air and unfiltered sunlight — an important source of vitamin D3.

Design Your Aviary

Every aviary is going to be different, depending on the species of birds you keep in it, your climate and whether you are breeding birds or simply providing an outdoor play area for your pet. Some people prefer a patio or solarium-style of aviary connected to their house. Others opt for a free-standing facility. Some aviaries resemble a greenhouse, while others look more like a barn or chicken coop.

How big of an aviary should you build? At a minimum, veteran aviculturist Jerry McCawley recommends flights be at least two or three times the wing span of the bird for the width, six times the body of the bird for the length and at least four times the bird’s body length for the height. A flight that is 8-feet long, 4-feet wide and 8-feet tall would house a group of about 20 budgerigars or cockatiels, or a pair of African greys or Amazon parrots.

Find out if there are any zoning regulations or noise ordinances that may prohibit your plans. If you live in a subdivision, town home or other planned housing development, there may be restrictions for your community regarding the types of outdoor structures residents are allowed to build.

Build Your Aviary

To build a simple floor-to-ceiling wire flight, start with the foundation. Texas aviculturist Mark Moore recommends concrete flooring for hookbills. “Concrete floors can be hosed down, which makes them easy to clean,” he said.

For a more natural look, put a layer of sand, gravel or pine shavings over the concrete; then every couple days you scoop out the dirty sand or shavings. You may also want to leave “holes” in the concrete where to plant trees, shrubs or edible, nontoxic foliage for your birds to enjoy.

For softbills, a dirt floor aviary will also do, according to Moore. “Generally, I don’t recommend dirt floors for hookbills because there’s a lot of parasites in the dirt, which can harm them,” he said. “The softbills, on the other hand, don’t tend to have as great of intensity of the health problems associated with the dirt that the hookbills do.”

If you are going with a concrete floor, Moore suggests you lay about a 12-inch slab of cement into the ground for the foundation. After that’s down, you can build on your frame. If you will be housing softbills, use either stone, brick, metal or plastic pipes, redwood or treated lumber to frame your flight. For hookbills, however, stone, brick or metal are your best framing materials.

After the frame is in place, use a galvanized, welded-wire cloth for the walls and roof. The wire spacing and gauge parameters depend on what size birds you are housing. “Finch aviaries would need small spacing between the wire, and a thinner gauge wire would be adequate,” McCawley said. “However, an aviary for a hyacinth macaw would require very heavy gage wire with larger spacing between the wire, so they do not get toes or beaks caught in a restrictive space.”

Choose a wire that’s a heavy enough gauge that the bird can’t break it apart. For large hookbills such as macaws and cockatoos, Moore recommends using 10-gauge wire or heavier. Medium-size parrots, such as Amazons and African greys, should have at least 121?2-gauge wire. For smaller birds, such as cockatiels and budgies, you can probably get by with 16-gauge wire.

“I wouldn’t recommend going any thinner than 16 gauge,” Moore said. “If you go any thinner than that, you might have a problem where a branch falls out of a tree and hits the cage, and that can actually bend a wire and open up a seam on the cage and allow the birds to escape.”

Another important detail is the entrance to your aviary. You may want to use a pre-made, ready-to-hang door from a building supply store (even a shower door will do), or make your own. In most cases, double doors are recommended to prevent escapes.

Also make provisions for a shelter. Even if you put your birds outside on a nice day, weather conditions can change abruptly, in which case your birds may need protection from gusts of wind, rains or excessive heat. Make the last half or third of the flight enclosed. Do this by attaching solid hardwood, Plexiglas, shade cloth, or Filon corrugated plastic panels to the roof and two or three sides.

If you live in the northern half of the country and the birds will be in the aviary year-round, you need more than just a simple shelter such as an indoor-outdoor aviary. This is a screened-in flight completely closed-off during the winter months with an indoor part — an actual building — that has insulation in the walls and a heat lamp or other source of warmth.

More …

October 5th, 2008 by Gypsy

In the wild Caiques live high in the tree tops and eat seeds, berries and fruits. Tame Caiques can be fed a commercial formulated diet of seed or pelleted food.

While a commercial formulated diet does meet most of the nutritional requirements of the Caique Parrot, it does lack the phytonutrients found in fresh vegetables, fruits, seeds and grains. A Caique can also become bored with a formulated diet. A good balanced diet for a Caique parrot will include a mixture of seed and pelleted food and a variety of fresh vegetables and fruit. Chickweed, dandelion leaves, green peas, sweet corn, carrots and carrot greens, beet greens, lettuce, watercress and sweet potatoes are excellent vegetables to offer your Caique. Caiques will also enjoy spinach and broccoli, which will have the added benefit of adding calcium to their diet. Fruits that Caiques will enjoy include, raisons, apples, bananas, peaches, pears, apricots, plums and bananas. Be sure to remove the seeds from the apples as they can be toxic. Caiques especially like walnuts and these can be offered as treats, especially during training.

Any fresh food that has not been eaten should be discarded after 24 hours.

Gravel and oyster shell can be offered as a calcium supplement and Caiques will enjoy having a cuttlebone to help keep their beaks trimmed and in good shape.

Additional vitamin supplements can be added to their drinking water or sprinkled on their food.

Offer your Caique fresh water several times a day. They do enjoy having a bath, so it is a good idea to supply a larger dish of water for bathing and a separate, smaller dish for drinking.

As with all birds, do not feed Nanday Conures, avocados, chocolate, coffee or salt. Chocolate and coffee contain theobromine, an alkaloid that is toxic to birds. Avocado is also toxic to birds. Foods with a high salt content are harmful to birds because they can not excrete salt.

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