I’ve just been sitting here watching my Senegal Parrot, Shamus, munch on some assorted nuts, and the thought occurred to me once again.
Your basic hookbill’s beak doesn’t seem to be a very efficient eating instrument. It seems that the majority of what the bird eats ends up wasted because it falls to the ground. The parrot manages to get a small piece bitten off, and if the rest isn’t large enough to be held in the bird’s foot, or, as the case may be with budgies and cockatiels, the bird isn’t able to hold the food with its foot, the morsel is simply dropped and usually not retrieved.
Yet parrots seem to be phenomenally successful. The only continents I can think of that don’t have a native parrot species are Europe and Antarctica. And I could be wrong about Europe. (Let us now mourn the erstwhile Carolina parrakeet.) And they are incredibly adaptable. New York City has a significant pest population of Quaker parrakeets, and there are places in California that play host to wild populations of ringneck parrakeets. I’m actually surprised that there aren’t huge flocks of wild cockatiels and budgies roaming the North American and European continents, since they seem rather prone to escape.
I just wonder how a critter with such an inefficient eating mechanism has managed to virtually take over the world. It seems like they would have to spend an inordinate amount of time foraging in order to get enough food into them to keep their little systems running, much less do things like produce eggs and feed their babies.
So, how do they do it? Do they simply manage to get their beaks on enough high-fat items such as seeds and nuts that they require less volume of food to sustain them, or are their digestive tracts just really, really efficient, extracting maximum nutrients from minimal amounts of food?
[QUOTE=The Asbestos Mango]
I’ve just been sitting here watching my Senegal Parrot, Shamus, munch on some assorted nuts, and the thought occurred to me once again.
Your basic hookbill’s beak doesn’t seem to be a very efficient eating instrument. It seems that the majority of what the bird eats ends up wasted because it falls to the ground. The parrot manages to get a small piece bitten off, and if the rest isn’t large enough to be held in the bird’s foot, or, as the case may be with budgies and cockatiels, the bird isn’t able to hold the food with its foot, the morsel is simply dropped and usually not retrieved.
No doubt like me your forever cleaning up after him!
I’m not familiar with the Senegal I’ll know it when I see it.
Have you noticed that 90% of all parrots hold their food in their left foot, and that the top mandible has small Herringbone grooves on the inside. Which are supposed to help push the food into their mouth, think of the mess without it.
So tell me mate how long have you had Shamus, how big is he and has he got you trained yet???
Budgies and cockatiels don’t usually fair to well when they escape because of their colours, most are bred for show. Yellow & blue budgies have a 2hr life span in my back yard, Carrawongs get them & eat them. Even my Cocky at 41cm/ 16"
is scared of the Carrawong and with good cause, they are natural enemies.
Pity you can’t come over & visit there must be at least 1/2 doz varieties of parrots & cockies around the house at this very moment munching & pratting away. well I’m grabing a beer and going outside to watch the daily show. You look after Shumus mate… Later.
I’ve had Shamus about a month now, he’s a little over a year old, and yes, he does have me trained.
Sennies are mostly green with a grey head and a yellow tummy- they look like they’re wearing a green jacket and vest over a yellow shirt. They’re about the size of a cockatiel, but more massive- around 4 oz.
Hadn’t really thought about it, but Shamus does seem to be left-footed. He also tends to stand on his left foot when he’s asleep. I’ll have to sneak a peek at O’Brien the budgie when he’s snoozing to see if he sleeps on his left foot.
They mostly do it by eating a lot. My cockatiels make an awful mess when they eat. If they don’t get enough from just munching on their regular food, they’ll start going after the bits and chunks and scraps that flew everywhere the first go-around. Eventually, they may wind up with a fine powder, which they just kind of stick to their tongue and swallow. That’s what they do with pellets, anyway. With seeds, they typically just hull them and swallow. Much less waste, and seeds tend to be pretty high in fat.
Yeah, Shamus spends almost frightening amounts of time eating, and he’s still a bit on the skinny side. But that’s a tame bird who has his food brought to him, or, when I’m eating, is taken to the food (he thinks peanut butter and jalapeno jelly on a tortilla is 'specially yummy).
In the wild, birds have to go out and find their own food, and I doubt that nuts and seeds are available on a year-round basis in most habitats. I know they supplement their diet with insects, but still, given the amount of time pet birds spend eating, it just seems to me that in the wild, they would have to spend so much time foraging that they wouldn’t have time for much of anything else, like, oh, say, making more parrots.
Like the picture, BTW. Looks like a cross between a crow and a magpie.
It is but that is only a baby and there's 3 types; black, grey & pied (photo). they come in at 41-51cm and they can pull the eyes out of a lamb. You can hand feed the ones at my place, they love raw mince. It pays to wear safety glasses. These critters are totally unafraid of anything!!! Kites, Hawks & Eagles excepted.
So shamus is another spoilt parrot, I hope he lives as long as mine can 18yrs down 90yrs to go.
Volume, volume, volume. Plus the ability to utilize resources that are unusable to other species. In wild birds that are studied post mortem it is incredible the diversity of foodstuffs found in the GI tract.
The other thing is that the selective pressure to be efficient is lacking in pet birds. A bird that wastes 10% of its diet in the wild may do fine, yet one wasting 20% will not get a chance to pass on its genes. A captive lifestyle takes away that pressure.
You say that mockingly (I think), but it’s a real concern of people who aquire birds later in life (their’s, not the bird’s). If it’s a pet you love, just thinking “well, I’ll be dead, who cares what happens to Polly” isn’t really in the mindset. You want to know your baby will be happy and taken care of.
Yeah. I’m thirty-seven and if I was going to get one of the larger parrots, (African grey, macaw, cockatoo) I would want to get an older bird just for that reason. If I got a young bird, I woud line my sister up (she’s ten years younger than me) or my niece when she gets older to care for the bird when I run down the curtain and join the choir invisible. I feel fairly confident that Shamus wouldn’t outlive me because Sennies generally live about twenty-five to thirty years, and odds are pretty good that I’ll make it to seventy.
Actually, there are quite a few people who have pet parrots that they inherited from a parent or relative who died, and sometimes the bird can even be passed on to grandchildren.
The long lifespans are why I think it’s important to properly socialize a parrot. It’s hard enough for them to lose someone in their lives, but even harder if they aren’t used to relating to other birds or humans.
My birds have favorite people, but they get along well with others. If something happens to me they have a chance to form attachments to someone else.
Actually, there are quite a few people who have pet parrots that they inherited from a parent or relative who died, and sometimes the bird can even be passed on to grandchildren.
[/QUOTE]
Funny you should say that. There was one up in Qld that was estimated to be 129yrs old, he was thought to be older but no-one was sure as he had out-lived the entire family. poor bugger died from a broken heart, he pulled out his feathers & just wouldn,t eat.
When I rescued my baby, (lennie). He was supposed to be released, but the little shite just kept coming back inside the house looking for me, he's moved in and taken over. That's the risk you run when they are spoon fed, I think he just liked the food. A head shrinker mate reckons he has an IQ of 95 with the mentality of a 10yr old, which didn't surprise me as I've watched him outsmart a hell of a lot of people. The bastard not only calls me by name when he wants something, but when he's angry with me he screams it out exactly like my ex-mother inlaw. it's very annoying.
I've arranged several options for him come my demise but it's dificult to find someone he will let handle him. He suckers people to pat him and then takes a piece out of them, then he does a little dance & LAUGHS at them while they are bleeding profusely.
Joke for ya lennie told me, stop laughing I haven't told it yet. He says "you people amaze me I say hello to you once and you repeat it for hours".
