By Josh Bridwell | Project Leader
We have survived our busiest time of the year. The big rush of amazon babies is over and we are just about through the conure baby season. Before I get to the details of our baby season, I wanted to some information to our last report. I wanted to give an update on Two Stroke.
Two Stroke is doing great. He stayed in our brooders a little longer than most parrots but he was always a healthy eater, which is half the battle of getting babies to thrive. Along with all of our other healthy amazons, he has graduated to our flight cage. He is learning to be a parrot. He is building his flights muscles and learning how to maneuver and make 10 point landings. I attached links to a couple of videos ot Two Stroke. The light feathers that we thought would come in yellow came in green. Two Stroke turned out to be a red-crowned amazon but he is unique. He has red feathers going down both sides of his throat. This isn't normal but we have seen this coloring before. We've seen this with amazons coming from Pasadena. We've also seen this coloring in the native flocks of red-crowned amazons in southern Texas. In the video, his two buddies still have their baby call, begging for food. They are eating on their own but the babies tend to keep begging for food months after they need to. When the wild flocks are bedding down for the night, we still hear the "babies" begging for food even though they are the same size as their parents.
I also wanted to comment on our conure, Conner. I forgot to mention one of his most annoying habits. I did mention how he likes to make as much noise as he can, he is a conure after all. But I didn't cover how he waits until he eats all of the food out of his metal bowl so he put his head into the bottom of it so all you see is his tail sticking up in the air. That is when he screams as loud as he can! He uses his bowl like a megaphone. It's so loud we have to say his name about 5 times before he can even hear us over his screaming. We always ask him why he must scream like that but he never gives us a straight answer.
Our baby season has been great. We have taken in 98 parrots through the middle of September and we took in 104 through the same time in 2016. We had a total of 112 parrots come through our doors last year so we are looking to a quiet ending to the year. The current breakdown is 77 amazons, 20 conures and 1 yellow chevroned parakeet. This is an increase in amazons and a decrease in conures compared to last year. All of our parrots that are physically able to be released are in our main flight together. Every single one was able to "wild up" this year, we don't see any that have imprinted and cannot be released. Like previous years, we will be releasing our amazons in the month of November. Our conures will then get the run of the large flight to really develop and build their strength. The conures are so small and agile that they never have any problems making tight turns and flying like jet fighters. We break a sweat whenever it is time to catch them for release.
I hate to say this is a success but we "only" had two parrots come in who were shot with pellet guns. The amazing thing is that they both survived. They can't be released but they will live. One that we are really excited for is the yellow headed amazon that was shot in Imperial Beach. Our other yellow head that has been here for years was also shot in Imperial Beach, her name is IBY. We excited because the existing flock of yellow heads had a maximum of 7 individuals. So this new yellow head is most likely related to IBY. We don't know if they are siblings, child or parent. They haven't come face to face yet because one of the pellets could not be surgically removed from the new one and she has been fighting lead poisoning. After months of having close calls in her health she is finally gaining weight. We want to make sure she will live before we introduce them again. We assume they will love each other but we didn't want to add stress to either one of them until we are comfortable with her recovery.
We also have two red-crowned amazons that are blind. They can see some light but that's about it. What's amazing is how long they hide their disability. These birds are watched continuously as they grow and they always blend in with the other babies. They figure out where to hang out with the other birds and where the food and water is. It's always when we see some small little action that isn't quite right when we figure out they can't see us like the other parrots can. I tried to take pictures for this report but they were not cooperating. I'll get some together for the next report. We don't know for sure but they appear to be a male and female. We have them in the same cage and they are slowly getting used to each other. Their names are Stevie and Justice, I'm sure you can figure out how they got their names.
Once again we are having our yearly open house to the public on October 8th from 11 AM to 4 PM. Our fifth annual Picnic With The Parrots is a chance see what we do and meet some of our incredible volunteers. We are also proud to have other non profits that will be joining us. Project Wildlife (where we got our start working with wildlife) www.projectwildlife.org, the Living Coast Discovery Center www.thelivingcoast.org and Intertwined Conservation www.intertwinedconservation.org will all be here. Please stop by if you happen to be in town.
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