Annual Bird Round-up

This week I had the opportunity to participate in the zoo’s annual winter bird round up.  We have an outdoor walk-through aviary.  Because the aviary is obviously subject to climate changes, the birds in the aviary experience rain, wind, and typical outdoor temperature fluctuations.  They have ample shelter, heating lamps, and trees to utilize for protection from the elements, but because many of the birds are exotic or migrate during winter, each fall when the temperature starts to drop we remove most of the birds from the aviary and place them into a heated building where they wait out the winter in climate-controlled comfort.  However, capturing 30-odd flighted birds in an open-air aviary is quite the challenge and requires all hands on deck for the zoo staff.

Despite being at the zoo for almost 6 years, this was only my second opportunity to participate in the winter bird round up.  The round up is a well-coordinated activity of nets, kennels (for transportation of the birds to their new homes), banding, health checks, and lots of people.  We get some funny looks from guests when they walk by and see 15 zoo personal jumping over rocks and duck around branches chasing after elusive birds and yelling out things like “coming your way!” and “center mesh!”.  Some of the birds that are accustomed to winter temperatures stay in the aviary (with shelters and heaters of course), but most of the birds have to be moved.  We also take this opportunity to do a quick health check on the birds, check their band ID, and in the case of our new Hammerkop chicks that hatched this year, clip a feather or two to send off for testing to determine gender. 

 I didn’t have any programs, just office work, so wanted to get out and enjoy the brisk day for a bit and volunteered to help with the bird round up.  My job was simple: stay out of the way of the more experienced bird netters and assist where I could.  My job consisted mostly holding a long pole and shaking a tree every now and then to flush a bird from the foliage.  The majority of the birds were rounded up in a matter of 30 minutes or so.  But then came the last four birds: three guiras and an ornery little blue-faced honey eater.  It took us another 2 hours to finally net the three guiras.  For a while I couldn’t determine if I was actually being helpful or not, since the fast-flying elusive birds would come toward me only to escape again.  However, I was thrilled when one of the last guiras was netted by a keeper next to me and I got to carefully remove it from the net and take it to be checked, banded, and kenneled.  Woohoo!  Success! 

Or not.

That silly little honey-eater, with amazing camouflage and the ability to zip right by you like a speeding dart did not want to cooperate.  At one point, there were probably about 7 keepers surrounding the bush she was hiding in with nets and another keeper perched high in a nearby tree to discourage the bird from heading that direction.  The little sucker still managed to get away!  Eventually the curator called an end to the foray and the honey eater got to stay a little bit longer in the aviary.  Attempts to rennet the little bugger were scheduled for a few days later.  I did not participate this time and I have yet to hear if the keepers were successful. 

On a side note, the cooperation and communication of the staff was amazing!  Opportunities like this where we can work together on one project and accomplish a goal really helps to make everyone (including an outside-the-keeper-realm educator like myself) feel like part of the zoo team.  Go us!