Stories From First Year: Aviary

This one didn't actually happen in first year, I think it was all the way after second year, but I didn't want to mess up my nice title series! Theoretically I could have done it in first year...

For my three weeks of "other" practical work, I picked birds! I worked at the aviary in the Esplanade that summer, which has dozens of species kept in all kinds of enclosures. Two of the enclosures house native New Zealand ducks that they're breeding as part of a conservation program. There's everything from the little songbirds and parrots, to pheasants and peacocks.

My favourite was a sulfur-crested cockatoo that suffered an old gunshot injury, so now climbs and walks around rather than flying. He knows how to speak and would say "hello" to me, and followed me around the enclosure by climbing along the walls. My least favourite was his neighbours, two more sulfur-crested cockatoos that got upset at my presence and liked to attack. More than once, I heard some flapping only to turn around and find a giant white bird hurtling towards my face.

The bird-keeper was a pleasant old fellow, but boy did he move slowly. He'd pause regularly to chat, whether it was out in the enclosures, or just hanging out at his computer as he showed me about a thousand photos from his trip to Africa. He usually took a full half hour at both morning and afternoon tea breaks, as well as a lengthy lunch. During that time I learned all the rules to darts and also drank more tea than I had in my entire life. Even if I didn't make myself tea, someone else usually brought me one. We spent so much time fluffing around to fill up the day, that one day when he was absent and I had to do all the enclosures myself, I got everything cleaned and fed by lunchtime. I scratched my head for a bit wondering how two people could take twice as long, then went home.

I was surprised by the birds' diets, having not had much experience. Making up their food is kind of fun, because they eat so much human food. Apart from their seeds (different combos for each enclosure), they also got fresh and frozen vegetables including corn, carrots, and peas. They got lettuce and silverbeet, apples, and some of them also got cheese, dried fruits, or honey water. To be honest, it sounded like a pretty delicious picnic some days.

At one point, we de-wormed all the budgies, which involved sticking tubes down their throats on two separate occasions--and there were 70 budgies. This was great handling experience, but I might mention that budgies bite hard.

My absolute favourite part was the Monster. I believe it was actually a Kea or some such bird, but I had to take bird-guy's word for it, because I never saw it. It had a huge enclosure with big bushes and a big house with concrete cylinders and other structures. I'd come in every day and drop off new lettuce, and find the previous day's three-quarters-eaten veggies strewn about. The apples would disappear. The water would decrease. But no bird. Ever. I decided it was actually a creature out of some horror movie, shrouded in mystery--the Kea thing is just a ruse.