Can someone tell me how long King parrots live, and how long they
continue to breed?
The reason I ask is that I suspect a local male visitor is the same bird
that used to visit me over ten years ago.
During years between 1998 and ~2003 I'm fairly certain that this same
bird that sired at least three families and I felt that I was feeding
its offspring and even grandkids for several years afterwards. But the
chain seemed to have been broken as I suspect a raptor moved in because
all the birds seemed to disappear almost overnight.
After that for the last four or five years we have had the occasional
visit but the birds were always flighty (sorry, awful pun) and would
never come close.
Our present visitor acts as though he knows us (both my wife and I) and
cottoned on to how I protect him from the aggressive Rainbows extremely
quickly.
In 1998 I spent considerable time (in almost constant disbelief) that
the King knew how I was choofing of the Rainbows and would return to
feed as soon as the Rainbows were held at bay. He would often flutter
around behind me as I dispensed with the Rainbows. (BTW the Rainbows
never imagined I would hurt them and we still remain on good terms)
Because of this rather instant familiarity I can only think that it's
the same bird.
When he turned up a few weeks ago he came with another much younger
male. At the time it raised questions in my mind to whether birds could
be both gay in nature and gay in plumage (who's a pretty boy?)
(apologies again). However I suspect the younger male was something like
an adolescent that never left home.
His father finally choofed him off and hasn't been seen recently.
Whilst I'm here, and I know this is not a politically correct thing to
ask, may I ask what is the best seed to feed the Kings? I have tried
"wild bird" mix and they only ever take the (grey) sunflower seed and
leave the rest. I feel that with my past experience in helping several
King families breed, and they only demand food when the kids have
hatched, that I can only be doing good if only to avoid them from eating
damn bread and sugar that other people do, just to see the pretty birds.
I also have to say that when buying some seed yesterday it was so
tragically depressing to see so many caged parrots, sitting, confused,
bemused, knowing damn well that they were trapped or that there was
something wrong or simply being bored sh__less by their predicament.
Is there a means to change this cruel paradigm?
I love to relate with the wild birds for who they are, how they relate
to eachother and to me in the real world, and not what they look like in
a bloody cage.
Cheers,
Peter (aka "ptera")
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