Articles
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Foster Birds
From time immemorial, birds have been tamed, often by children (boys) who took corvids out of the nest for hand rearing. It was often not a long-lasting bond. In autumn, the tame birds flew away anyway. Even today, the budgerigar and parrot-like birds are still popular as tame roommates. The famous couple Oskar and Magdalena Heinroth gained fame by hand rearing over 1,000 European birds of over 250 species, often from egg hatch. This is beautifully described in the book: “Die Vogel-WG, die Heinroths, ihre 1.000 Vögel und die Anfänge der Verhaltensforschung” They raised the most diverse birds, from herons to reed warblers and long-tailed tits to sea eagles. The…
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Yellow Cardinal (Gubernata cristata)
It was in autumn of 2018, when I looked around at a bird trader to find “something” in the field of insectivorous birds for my empty breeding aviary. And I hate empty breeding aviaries! It is never the case that all birds breed successfully (far from it), so there has never been a lack of aviaries for fledglings. But unfortunately there was nothing of my interest at the trader. Only that one couple of yellow cardinals, they were very beautiful, weren’t they? Completely against my habits, I bought the couple at instant, without reading or studying in advance. That would come when I got home. The yellow cardinal is found…
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Avicultural Notes
The popularity of the Australian Shell Parrakeet (so-called love-bird of the trade) is growing by leaps and bounds. Hardly a day passes we do not receive letters from all over the country asking for information about breeding them, size of cages, what kind of food required when nesting, kind of nest, and a dozen other questions. Why doesn’t some of our members write down their own experience and let others profit thereby. A bird that is becoming more and more frequently seen even in the smaller pet shops is the Bengalese or Societyfinch. Large numcers of these have been brought over from Japan lately and this may account for its…
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Luzon Bleeding-heart Doves (Gallicolumba luzonica)
The Luzon Bleeding-heart Dove by Warren Myers, San Bernardino, California The Philippine Islands are home to five species of bleeding-heart doves – or pigeons as they are sometimes called. Several of the larger islands have their own species although several of the doves overlap on to a few of the smaller islands. The birds’ scientific names sometimes reflect the island on which the dove is found. The bird in the photograph is a Luzon Bleeding-heart Dove which is the most common in aviculture and is found on the largest island in the Philippines – Luzon. The birds not covered in this article include the Mindoro Bleeding-heart, Gallicolumba platenae, the…