Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Toucans and other birds

Hi,

As some of you already know I am currently doing the MSc Course in Animal Biology and Welfare. The course has three parts of which one term in England at Writtle College near Chelmsford, Essex, one term in the Netherlands at the HAS in Den Bosch and 5 months of dissertation.
It was a bit of a hassle to find a proper dissertation but I was just in time with finding one. Well actually I was bold enough to go to Rotterdam Zoo (where I did a previous traineeship on Crowned Pigeons) and ask if I could do my own thought up dissertation there. At first I wanted to do research on the welfare of exotic pheasants, such as the Crested Fireback (Lophura genus). But the curator of the birds kept on talking about the many toucans they had and since I found it a better (in all perspectives) subject, I said yes and Rotterdam Zoo said yes as well.
So now I am working on a welfare assessment of 17 toucans at Rotterdam Zoo, and I am specifically focusing on stress. As a result I get to spend lots of time with birds and learn a lot from the keepers as well. This is of course perfect for not only knowledge and fun (like being bombarded with shit by Turacos and Oropendolas) but also photies.

SW


A Keel Billed Toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus)


Another Keel Bill


A colourful beak of a Keel Bill (That was a close one by the way)


A female Mandarin duck (Aix galericulata)


A male Mandarin duck


The Bush-Stone Curlew (Burhinus grallarius)


Don't have to say it twice, but this female was on eggs and therefore sat very still. It did take me a while to find her as she was right in front of my camera :S Strange? Well very common for people like me to not see the obvious.


And lastly, a very rare sight, me on a photie !!! together with Tom Tom, the male Muscovy duck. Chris was so kind to take this one and many other pictures of the muscovys, check out his Photie Page (The link is on the right side).

2 comments:

Linda said...

oh, I like the toucans! when I was little, as in 5 years old, I lived near AviFauna, the bird park. I went there A LOT, just because it was so close. not that I remember much of it :P

Love, linda,

(oh, and I do like the new banner!)

Anonymous said...

Some great photies, and the new banner is awesome :)

Love you,

Chris

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