This week (and last week) I was working on the bird section of the zoo. I always like working with the birds; the work is less manual than in other parts of the zoo but its always good fun.
For the first task of the morning, Claire and I headed over to the Toucan House to clean out and feed the birds there. We were hoping to get it done pretty quickly and so she started with the bats, which arrived at the zoo a few weeks ago, which I started at the other side with the sun conures.
I’ve always liked the sun conures; theirs was the first aviary I cleaned out, back on my first day volunteering back in March (or was it February? – I lose track), but I was a little bit nervous. Last time I had gone in the cage one of the birds had become quite aggressive towards me and I got bitten on the arm.
This time, I gave them their food first (in the hope to distract them) before setting to work cleaning the enclosure. I was about done and just sweeping up the mess they had made with their new food when one of them landed on me. I was hoping he’d be content with simply biting my hair band but unfortunately Carlos decided to bite my ear and then my finger (as I raised my hands to protect my ear).
Although they weren’t serious injuries, they really hurt and my finger started to bleed which meant we had to put on a plaster and go and fill out the accident forms before we could get back to work
I made Claire do back in the conures’ cage to get my cleaning stuff out of it.
There’s a picture of the culprits.
Things fortunately became less dramatic after that. I cleaned out one of the toucan cages, who was definitely one bird I didn’t have to worry about attacking me. This is Tammy and he is a real sweetheart and sometimes tries to feed you. Today however, he was simply interested in trying to eat food out of the conures’ old food tray.
Later on I did my usual tasks of cleaning out the small aviaries and the lovebirds. I like doing this a Lolly, on of the lorikeets is particularly friendly, the trouble was, when she landed on my shoulder and refused to get off I was paranoid that I’d get bitten again!
I also had to go and clean out the parrot cages, this is always interesting as you have to try and find boxes and empty toilet rolls of them to play with and put them imaginatively in the cages, and then prepare their feeds.
This is Bobby one of the parrots.
The final task of the day was to get the food out the freezer for the birds of prey to have the next morning. Here’s a picture of Monday’s breakfast defrosting… Yum!
I think that’s enough for the day. I have rambled long enough. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures next week!
