Scarlet Macaws aka Red and Yellow Macaws

Scarlet Macaws aka Red & Yellow Macaws

The Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) is a large, colorful parrot. It is native to humid evergreen forests in the American tropics, from extreme eastern Mexico locally to Amazonian Peru and Brazil, in lowlands up to 500 meters (at least formerly up to 1000m). It has been widely extirpated by habitat destruction and capture for the pet trade. Formerly it ranged north to southern Tamaulipas.

Description / Personality:

Scarlet Macaws are large and very colorful. A full-sized macaw can get over 2 lbs, with a length of up to 96 cm (36 inches), of which more than half is the pointed, graduated tail typical of macaws.

The plumage is mostly scarlet, but the rump and tail-covert feathers are light blue, the greater upperwing coverts are yellow, the upper sides of the flight feathers of the wings are dark blue as are the ends of the tail feathers, and the undersides of the wing and tail flight feathers are dark red with metallic gold iridescence. There is bare white skin around the eye and from there to the bill. The upper beak is mostly pale horn in color and the lower is black. Sexes are alike; the only difference between ages is that young birds have dark eyes, and adults have light yellow eyes.


Housing:

Scarlet MacawThey need a roomy cage and extended periods of out-of-cage activities. Providing them with a play pen or parrot perch will provide them with a safe-out-of-cage hang-out, and prevent them from sitting and destroying (chewing on) on your furniture.

Diet:

They eat a variety of seeds (unfortified / organic), fruits, veggies, nuts and high quality pellets (Dr. Harvey's, Lafebers, Harrisons, etc.), as well as nutritional food items, such as fruits and vegetables.. -Please note: When feeding pellets to your pet, please be aware of the fact that overly feeding citrus fruits (including oranges) or vitamin-C-rich foods to your birds can lead to "Iron Overload Disease" as vitamin C increases the amount of iron absorbed from foods and supplements.

Distribution:

The Scarlet Macaws' natural habitat runs from eastern Panama in Central America south across northern South America, east of the Andes, to Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.

Macaws as Pets:

They are beautiful, yet high-maintenance pet birds that require an experienced bird owner, or someone who is committed to learning about them, and providing the appropriate environment and care for this magnificent parrot. In the wild, macaws are used to "customizing" their environment, chewing on branches, creating a nest to raise their young. In a home, they will continue to chew and explore with their beak anything that is in their environment. Training is important to integrate them into the family, and develop acceptable behavior. Providing hem with a very large cage that allows for movements bulletinside the cage, toys, several food dishes and branches is important.

Macaws can be cranky at times and may be a one person bird or sometimes develop a liking for only men or women.

Scarlet Macaws can be very noisy, as they make loud, low-pitched, throaty squawks and screams.

Scarlet Macaws are popular cage birds for those who can pay both the high price of the bird and the price of the big cage needed, can stand their loud calls, and can give them considerable time outside their cages. They are considered sociable and affectionate, and some talk well.

Training and Behavioral Guidance:

Macaw ownership generally presents multiple challenges, such as excessive chewing - especially at certain stages in their life. They do discover their beaks as method of "disciplining us" once they are out of the "baby stage" and they can generally be somewhat naughty, and it really is important to learn to understand them and to guide their behavior before an undesirable behavior has been established. Undisciplined macaws will chew on electric wiring potentially causing house fires.

They regard anything in your home as a "toy" that can be explored and chewed on; destroying items that you may hold dear or are simply valuable. Even a young bird that has not been neglected and abused requires proper guidance; this becomes even more challenging when it involves a rescued bird that may require rehabilitation. Not everybody can tolerate the natural loud call of a macaw and even though it can't (or should not) be entirely eliminated, there are ways to discourage screaming / screeching in your pet macaw.

Overall, it is important to guide parrot behavior, but even more so if your feathered family member is a magnificent and powerful macaw.

Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine Falcon

Fast Facts
Type: Bird
Diet: Carnivore
Average lifespan in the wild: Up to 17 years
Size: Body, 14 to 19 in (36 to 49 cm); Wingspan, 3.3 to 3.6 ft (1 to 1.1 m)
Weight: 18.8 to 56.5 oz (530 to 1,600 g)






Once an endangered species in the United States, North American peregrine falcon populations have made a great comeback due to bans on usage of DDT and similar pesticides.

These falcons are formidable hunters that prey on other birds (and bats) in mid-flight. Peregrines hunt from above and, after sighting their prey, drop into a steep, swift dive that can top 200 miles an hour (320 kilometers an hour).

Peregrine falcons are among the world's most common birds of prey and live on all continents except Antarctica. They prefer wide-open spaces, and thrive near coasts where shorebirds are common, but they can be found everywhere from tundra to deserts. Peregrines are even known to live on bridges and skyscrapers in major cities.

These birds may travel widely outside the nesting season—their name means "wanderer." Though some individuals are permanent residents, many migrate. Those that nest on Arctic tundra and winter in South America fly as many as 15,500 miles (25,000 kilometers) in a year. Yet they have an incredible homing instinct that leads them back to favored aeries. Some nesting sites have been in continuous use for hundreds of years, occupied by successive generations of falcons.

Peregrine populations were in steep decline during the mid-20th century, and in the United States these beautiful falcons became an endangered species. The birds have rebounded strongly since the use of DDT and other chemical pesticides was curtailed. Captive breeding programs have also helped to boost the bird's numbers in the U.S. and Canada. Now populations are strong in those nations, and in some parts of the globe, there actually may be more peregrines than existed before the 20th-century decline.

Peregrines are favored by falconers, and have been used in that sport for many centuries.

Big Birds Flying Across The Sky

Big Birds Flying Across The Sky

While coming back on the boat from the Isle of Mull to the town of Oban on the west of Scotland, I took these photos of a seagull that was following behind us. I presume he (or she) was using the boat’s slipstream to grab a free ride. Sometimes the seagull got blown back and had to fight to catch the boat again, but mostly it managed to stay the course. I took loads of photos and here are five that came out quite well along with a few tunes concerning this particular bird.

Jolly Birds

Jolly Birds

Jolly Birds screen saver brings you 69 beautiful birds flying in the sky, walking on the ground, sitting on the trees and swimming in the water.

You will see eagle, hawk, stork, swan, pigeon, gull, goose, pelican, thrush and few exotic amazing birds. Birds just exist. The existence is wonderful. That simple fact makes them happy. Why shouldn't we follow their example.

Let's be happy too! Get your spirits high in the sky with these free and happy creatures!

New Bird Discovered in Colombia

New Bird Discovered in Colombia

This is one rebel that's been tied to a very serious cause.

The fist-size bird with punk-rock plumage is a new—and possibly threatened—avian species that makes its home in the last remnants of a remote Colombian cloud forest.

Dubbed the Yariguíes brush finch, the small bird was first found in 2004 in an isolated region of the eastern Andes mountain range known as the Serranía de los Yariguíes. The region and the finch are both named for the Yariguíes, an indigenous tribe that once inhabited the mountain forests and reportedly committed mass suicide rather than submit to Spanish colonial rule in the 1500s.

Over the past three years researchers Thomas Donegan and Blanca Huertas have regularly hiked into the remote Andes forests to help document avian species diversity. In a paper submitted in February to the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club, Donegan and Huertas describe finding a bird that differs from other known brush finches because it has a solid black back and no white markings on its wings.

During further fieldwork in 2005 the scientists were able to capture one of the birds and take photographs and a blood sample before releasing it back to the wild. The images and DNA analysis cemented the finch's status as a new species.

"There are about two to three new birds found in the world every year," Donegan told the Associated Press. "It's a very rare event."

And the discovery of what researchers believe to be a rare bird got a conservation boost in the nick of time. Only a few months before the new brush finch was confirmed, the Colombian government had designated much of the bird's habitat as the Serranía de los Yariguíes National Park, a 193,698-acre (78,387-hectare) expanse of protected grasslands and mountain forests.

"The new protected area," Donegan and Huertas wrote in their Bulletin paper, "should assist in conserving (the Yariguíes brush finch) and other threatened species."