I’ve been wondering that, too.
And how long will it be until they realize that chubby tourists have LOTS of tasty fat?
Mine like to go after footwear, too. They especially like to chew the stiff ends (aglets) off laces then fray up the ends.
There are days I’m convinced one or another of my birds (sometimes all three) are calling dibs on my eyeballs. At such times, one sees not birds but little feathered dinosaurs… usually of the velociraptor or T. rex variety, but scaled down in size.
Parrots relentlessly sample everything within reach. As soon as something tasty enters their territory it is only a matter of time…
I don’t know that all flesh-eating parrots are after the fat. I mean, homeless people often are pretty lean – and how many homeless people disappear in L.A. every year? Huh? HUH?
And I thought I was the only one who thought “look at the dinosaur descendant” upon seeing a bird walking around.
I used to have a cockatiel and he would nap on the pillow by my head when I napped. One time I woke up and opened my eyes just as he was coming in for a landing and I had a truely primordial HOLY SHIT panic attack at the monster stooping towards my head … and Baby loved to nibble the edges of paperback books. I have a whole shelf that are neatly chamfered along the edges:smack:
I would think twice about going camping wherever these kea are to be found … I would be afraid of waking up as kea kibble :eek:
I’ve had parrots try to wake me up by pecking me on the eyeballs.
The weirdest one, however, ate one of my books. The book was a diary of Aliester Crowley and the bird’s name was Azazel.
No, the Mutton Bird is a term applied to different species of Shearwaters where the chicks are commercially harvested.
In Australia it is the Short-tailed Shearwater, the NZ equivalent is the Sooty Shearwater. There’s also the Wedgetail Shearwater and Great Shearwater.
Most of these species are abundant, though there are indications the Sooty should be classified as “near threatened”.
Muttonbirds are delicious.
Taste like mutton, you know.
Imagine if NZ still had the moa and Haast’s Eagle. Birds evolved to be dinosaur-level fierce in NZ.
Dammit, you stole my line!
A group of parrots that feed off of sheep. Am I the only person who thinks the Kea is the missing link behind Homo-Politician.
Keas eat mutton birds: :eek: (paras 4 & 5)
My parrot is the smallest pet species (the Parrotlet), but I still have to supervise him closely when he’s out of his cage. Not only is he capable of reducing almost any material to its smallest possible particles, he’ll get into absolutely anything. They say cats are curious, but dang I’ve never seen anything like a bird for having to stick his beak into every goddamn thing. Steve has to sit on my knuckles when I type. He hovers like a hummingbird around my hands whenever I’m doing anything, like “Lemme see lemme see!” When I go in the bathroom, for anything, he follows behind me and sits on top of the shower door, eyeing me out of one eye trying to figure out what I’m doing. If I’m doing something in the sink he flies down to see more closely, then when he realizes he can’t land anywhere he does a vertical U-turn back to the top of the shower wall.
His latest sworn enemy is my aspirin bottle. Whenever I pick it up he freaks entirely out. His crest goes up, his neck shoots forward, and he makes the loudest whistling and chirping sounds he’s ever made, entirely new sounds. He’ll fly at it to attack it while I’m trying to open it, then when I put it down he lands on the cap and goes at it with his beak, like a wasp trying to find a soft spot for his stinger. Sometimes I shake it at him just to get a performance out of him. Pretty entertaining. If you asked Steve what the toilet was for, he’d tell you it’s the place where I sit in order to hold a book for him to perch on and shred while I’m trying to read it.
All this from a bird smaller than a sparrow. And Keas are freakin huge, as I can attest from my days working at a zoo that kept theirs in a huge outdoor cage like those designed for lions.