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> From: Michael Todd <>
> Hello everyone,
>
> Philip Veerman raises a good point about the escapees not having any
> "street-sense" so to speak. This could be a major reason. I think that a
> tough enough bird like the Peach-faced Lovebird could force itself into
> a niche in parts of Australia where grain-growing is the norm.
I haven't kept caged birds, but know a number of people who have, and their
comments about peach-faces tend to be along the lines of what quarrelsome,
nasty, hard to get along with and downright violent birds they are within
their own species, and sometimes with others. If we're theorising, I'd
think it's possible that escaped peach-faces could quickly fall foul of
bigger and tougher birds, because of their combative nature. OTOH, I've
seen peach-faces which have joined flocks of scaly-breasted lorikeets,
which I guess would assist individual survival but not help establish a
feral population.
> think that flocks of birds would escape at times. A door accidentally
> left open, a curious dog forcing its way into an aviary, could easily
> result in entire aviaryfuls of birds escaping at once, so finding
> partners wouldn't necesssarily be a problem.
Two things here -- peach-faces, I've heard, tend to come back! I know of a
number of instances of people recovering their escaped birds when they
returned to the aviary, and have also observed a "fly-by" escapee clinging
to the wire of a neighbour's aviary after being attracted by the calls of
the caged birds. My point is that perhaps a significant percentage of
escapees don't remain at large.
Also, I understand that peach-faces are particularly choosy about mates,
and for this reason are commonly sold as established pairs (hence
"lovebirds", I guess). My sister at one stage had around 28 peach-faces,
but IIRC, only one breeding pair had formed, apart from those birds she
bought as pairs. So the chances of an escapee finding a mate mightn't be
terrific.
Vicki PS
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