No more room

We doubled the number of different species in our care yesterday. As well as the ringtails, the brushtails, the lorikeets and Gloria the cockatoo we now have four new additions to the family. Three of them are only youngsters too, so they need to be hand fed.

First up we have this young Figbird.


It has a funny way of shaking its head from side to side with its mouth wide open when you go to feed it, but it's still very easy to feed. When it gets older it may have darker feathers and a bright red spot around the eye, unless it's a female, in which case she'll stay pretty much as she is now, just bigger.

Then we have a young Crested Pigeon.


These are often incorrectly called a Topnotch pigeon because of the crest. A Topnotch is a different species altogether. This little fellar is the hardest to feed. Although it's calling for food, I can hear it now actually, it won't take food from us. We have to actually pick it up and open its beak while someone else drizzles Womabaroo Granivore formula into its mouth with a syringe.

Then we come to this young crow, with a face only its mum could love.


Talk about easy to feed, open the cage, show it the mince and it opens a beak so wide you could drive a bus down it. And the satisfied sound it makes as the food goes down is one of the reasons that Donna and I like looking after the black and whites (magpies, butcherbirds, etc). All the corvids that we've looked after seem to be talking with their mouth full when you feed them, as though they're thanking you for each morsel.

Last but not least we have this poor fellar.


This is a Tawny Frogmouth, they're often mistaken for owls, which they aren't and we've even had one mistaken for a Kookaburra. I can understand why people think they're owls as they look similar and they're nocturnal. I'm not sure why someone would think it's a Kookaburra though, you've only got to look at the beak. We've had a few Tawnies in care and haven't had much luck with them, usually because they've been accidentally poisoned.

That's not the case with this one though. The reason its head is tilted to one side is because it had a collision with something and it's brain damaged. If it doesn't improve within a couple of days it will most likely have to be euthenased unfortunately. It's not eating at all at the moment. It'll open its mouth for food, but anything you put in just falls out again. It's pretty alert and the eyes even react to light as they should, but it just sits there with its head to one side unless you disturb it.

All of these birds should hopefully be passed on to other carers soon as we just don't have any room for them, we've run out of cages and baskets. I've got to admit though, they're all pretty cute, even the crow in a strange sort of way. If we did have the room for them they'd probably stay with us. The only trouble is, most of them are communal birds and need to be kept with others of their kind, especially when they're young. Keeping this lot would mean getting more of the same. That's why we have six Lorikeets.