Birds!

[Jinx]

I really like birds a lot. I think they're funny and cute. My favorites are ravens and crows, but we have some ducks that live around here. Last year they had a bunch of babies that would swim on the river!

We also get a lot of seagulls. The river froze over this year, and when it was melting, about 30 or so would stand on an ice flow and just ride it down the river. Then once they got underneath the bridge they'd fly off and do it again. It made me laugh every time I saw them.

What are your favorite kinds of birds? (Also, hi, Calliope!)

[Spuuky]

I can't imagine meeting someone who loves birds as much as my wife does. There are no birds she does not love except Budgies, although of course some have a higher priority than others.

My favorite class of birds is probably owls; they are (usually) very tranquil and watchful, and they are so cool-looking.

I also really like:
Kea, Kakapo, and a variety of other New Zealand birds
Crows, ravens, and jays
Quakers and other small round parrots
Any birds that look friendly or inquisitive

[Calliope]

Birds are important to me, in a way I have trouble articulating. I don't have a life list, nor do I wish to put a bird on everything (people keep giving me generic gifts with sparrows and such on them, which I do not care for).

I was born in Aotearoa, which is extraordinary in its birdlife. We have native insects, fish, frogs, and birds - but no native mammals other than dolphins and bats. Without mammalian predators, birds were free to evolve in fantastic ways - giant penguins, eagles large enough to carry a person away, alpine parrots, flightless parrots, all kinds of nocturnal birds, birds that lay the biggest egg in proportion to body size of any bird, birds that were thought to be extinct and were rediscovered again. There are birds everywhere! As children of the forest god Tane, birds feature heavily in our mythology, and can foreshadow events.

I like birds. When we were last in Aotearoa together, Spuuky & I went on a trip to see toroa (albatrosses!) and kea. If I go to a zoo, I usually bypass the majority of the mammals and go straight to the bird enclosures. At the moment, there are a lot of swallows and crows that hang out outside my kitchen window, it's nice to listen to them.

I find birds interesting and calming, although as Spuuky said, I don't care much for dullards like pigeons or budgies. I like intelligent birds most, so corvids and parrots. As you know, I also volunteered for years at a raptor rescue centre, so got used to literally chasing down eagles, vultures, hawks and owls - those were fun times

[Shorty]

I like birds. I spent a lot of time around birds as a teenager because my high school boyfriend's mom ran a private bird rehabilitation center out of her home; at any given time there could be twenty or more birds in the house.

In that house is where I fell in love with parrotlets. The teeniest full-grown bird I've ever seen would sit on my shoulder and preen my hair and coo into my ear. He was a poor little abused thing and had so much love to give.

In that same house is where I was viciously attacked by an African Something (I will look up the breed later) on my septum and millimeters away from my eye. This bird had it out for me and stalked my for months, waiting for an opportunity to attack me. It was traumatizing and I've been afraid with birds with beaks larger than my fingernails since then.

As a young adult I owned a pair of lovebirds who I struggled with constantly. I tried to spoil them with love and gifts, but it took a long time for them to warm up to me, and even then, they weren't very warm. I was a very inexperienced bird keeper, but I did what I could. When I moved into a place I couldn't take my birds, I rehomed them to someone who ran a house a lovebird-specific aviary.

We also had little finches when I was a kid, but didn't have much interaction with them.

[Shorty]

It's a lot of difficult work and a lot of money, a lot of not giving them certain things because a lot of things are poisonous or can harm them, and a lot of checking on them. Fresh chopped fruit and vegetables every day, no exceptions (specific ones because some are poisonous to them). Atleast an hour of cage-free time a day at the bare minimum, cage cleaning every week (sometimes more). Lots of toys and treats, but not so many treats that they overeat or don't eat their actual food. No cooking with teflon because the fumes can kill them. And any books, magazine, paper, poster, ANYTHING PAPER YOU WANT TO SAVE put it out of their sight because they will shred the trout out of it and leave trails everywhere. Wing clipping and nail clipping was traumatizing for both myself and the birds. Lots of getting bit. Also, they poop freely and liberally, but that could have been guessed.

There are few things that bring more joy in life, though, than having a teeny little bird cuddle up to your neck.

[Calliope]

What Shorty said. Also, I would love to get an African Grey (someone here has one!) or another parrot, except it would probably outlive me by thirty years, and I can't stand the thought of having "abandoned" my parrot, or someone else not loving it and looking after it as well as I did.

The last raptor rescue I worked at was at a private residence, and they had a garage that they paid someone to clean once a week. I went inside one time...and it was full of fifty parrots, everything from cockateils to macaws, all stuck in this tin and concrete garage with no sunlight, no interaction, and no reprieve from the noise. It was horrible, I couldn't understand how they could treat raptors so well and parrots so poorly.

[Shorty]

That sounds more like hoarding than caring for them

Fujiko just got her African Grey! I've spent time around them, they are lovely creatures

The little terrorist who attacked me was actually a black-headed caique, and she looked like this.



Her name was Chicken

[Colonel Angus]

I like birds, but not pidgeons. All they do is get in the way & trout everywhere. I wish people would stop feeding them.

[Shiny]

Birds have creepy eyes but I love them except the ones that are dicks. My favorite birds are Sun Conures, African Grays, and Senegals. There was a time when we had more birds than dogs, but that isn't the case anymore. We used to breed birds as well. Right now we have two: a Senegal and an African Gray. Pretty sure the Senegal thinks I'm her girlfriend.

[Cloudane]

I'm not a hardcore bird fanatic and can't do this thing people do where they spot a bird in the garden and name the exact species and variation on the spot but I do like them, am a member of RSPB and sometimes go and do a bit of watching and photography at the nearby nature reserve.

As such I'd find it hard to name a favourite. I quite like the little cute ones - tits are good (steady.), they're just gentle and pleasant. Not big on seagulls, but I'm not like the idiots in the coastal town just down the road who keep writing to the papers demanding a cull because they find them a bit noisy.

We don't "keep" birds per se, but some sparrows choose to nest in a little gap in one of our eaves every year. Doesn't seem to do any damage (not particularly bothered you can hear them skittering about either) and they get by fine on their own, so they're more than welcome!

Birds are important to me, in a way I have trouble articulating. I don't have a life list, nor do I wish to put a bird on everything (people keep giving me generic gifts with sparrows and such on them, which I do not care for).

Haha, the unfortunate side of being into anything with lots of gift merchandise, you're the "easy" one when everyone is frantically running around sorting out their Christmas lists. The bane of cat lovers, golf players and Guinness drinkers everywhere. And indeed bird watchers.

[Night Fury]

I love Magpies because they're very Newcastle, and very much a part of my working class upbringing - my Gran used to live by the Magpie poem - and so yeah, they're very much sort of rooted in my childhood. Magpies make me think of home and family.

I also like red macaws (guacamayas) I saw them in Mexico, and stayed at a resort dedicated to their conservation. They are very beautiful birds.



Since being in Australia, I am always amazed at the birds I see here. The cockatoos which fly around freely and in huuuuuge groups. I get lovebirds in my garden occasionally and they are stunning little things.

I really like the yellow tail black cocaktoo that sometimes hang around - they are smurfing noisy though. You will know when they're around.

[Ayen]

I like birds. The type of birds I see out here more often than not are robins. Occasionally they'll be a red or blue bird outside. I love parrots!

[Bubba]

My first ever pet was a budgie called Mickey which unfortunately went insane in later life.

Mickey used to stay in our front room and kept himself either to his cage or the curtain rail. When I was 5 or 6, I was playing with my Action Force figures in the front room when suddenly I saw something yellow/green out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to the right. Sat on my shoulder was what can only be described as a face of pure evil... a demonic hellbird intent on causing intense pain and suffering.

Naturally my 5-year-old self panicked and ran screaming into the dining room. My 9-year-old brother was in the dining room and saw me come pelting into the room shrieking whilst being chased by a deranged budgie. We then, both now screaming, ran into the kitchen with Mad Mickey in hot pursuit. Our Mum was in there lovingly preparing a casserole for our dinner. Taking the 'every brother for himself approach' we ran straight past her into the bathroom and barricaded ourselves in. We spent the next ten minutes listening to the muffled screams of our own mother as she fended off attacks from the maniacal feathery fiend.

He unfortunately passed away a few weeks later... so ends the tale of Mickey the Mother Mauling Budgerigar.

[Calliope]

this is a nice link

[escobert]

obligatory Raptors are the best post.

Bald Eagles are my favorite to watch.