Avian Behavior Conservancy

12/16/2025

Tell me that is not what a hungry stomach sounds like! When mine growls really loudly right before lunch, I like to look around and say “who let the crane out?” Working on reinforcing mechanics with the team and Teacup the grey crowned crane today! What this means is that the way you deliver her treats can have an impact on the success of what you are asking her to do. If I want her to fly to a perch (big effort) and she does, and then I feed her treats she can’t grab very well or they spill everywhere, she might think a bit longer the next time I ask. On the other hand, if I hold on to her pellets too tightly in my hand, she will grab and twist to get to the yummy bits. It does NOT feel good 🙃 so there is a lot that goes into one simple training concept!

12/14/2025

If you are in the Southern California Palm Desert area, please keep an eye out for a missing Southern ground hornbill. She’s not one of ours, but is not too far away

PALM DESERT, Calif. (KESQ) – The Living Desert needs your help after one of its birds went missing on Thursday. According to the zoo, the bird is a Southern ground hornbill. It is described as very large, standing at three feet tall with a wingspan of four to six feet. It is black with distinctive

12/13/2025

Don’t let Suyana’s heavy breathing fool you like it did us; she is still raring to go and won’t let a silly thing like heat slow her down. Unlike human lungs, bird lungs don’t inflate or deflate when they breathe. The air sacs throughout a bird’s body provide ventilation. Bird flight is one of the most if not the most energetically taxing form of locomotion, and everything from their respiratory to their circulatory systems have evolved to maximize flight.

Their blood cells, unlike ours, have nuclei, their hemoglobin has a high oxygen affinity, and they have a higher heart rate and body temperature. It’s actually pretty incredible given all of the systems that birds like condors, other vultures, hornbills, parrots, even some corvids, can live up 50-70 years in many cases, given how hard their bodies work, even at rest.

12/12/2025

“How do I get crows to bring me gifts?” We get this question quite a bit. I always say first be careful what you wish for 😆 Corvid culture is very different than our human concept of culture, and the term gift is quite loose. Those who study the family of crows and ravens aren’t really sure why they leave items, but we do know that they can pick up random objects often, set them down, leave them behind, lather-rinse-repeat.

There’s two ways to think about it: no, corvids are not like us. They don’t understand the concept of exchanging kindness for kindness, this is a human construct that harms animals when we try to map human qualities on them.

And two, I don’t really care what the actual truth is, connecting with animals is special. Let me believe what I want to believe.

Personally, even as a biologist, I think both things can be true. Getting people excited about birds is special, and if they feel compelled to dig deeper, I’m here for that journey!

12/11/2025

Ok to be fair we are both looking rough with Santa Ana wind weather, but she does so much better than me. This time of year, first year or hatch year kestrels undergo a molt in which they lose their body feathers (not wing or tail feathers). I was a bit alarmed when I did a morning check on Goldie and it looked like she had suddenly exploded over night and had patches everywhere. Her head looked ridiculous yall. There were bald spots everywhere.

In the summer she will undergo a regular complete molt. Unlike other birds of prey like red tailed hawks, she will lose all of her wing feathers. This makes kestrels pretty much impossible to age after their first year, whereas hawks and eagles will have distinct molting patterns on their wings and not lose all of their wing feathers each molt.

12/10/2025

Turns out, everyone thinks they sound better in the shower 😂 Hugo knows the whole verse, I’m surprised the performer in him wasn’t in to showcasing for the camera. Perhaps he just isn’t Maurice today.

Personally, I’m perfectly happy to not have a parrot that is the gangster of love (lub 😅). Amazons are often known to divebomb when they get territorial. Many people who have “green parrots” often tell stories of how aggressive they can be. My neighbor growing up had Peppy, the yellow naped Amazon and I was obsessed with him. Sadly, he only had one lava rock on a chain as a toy. How much we have grown in the last few decades!

12/08/2025

Don’t worry, they won’t 💩 on you. They lighten the load *before* they get to you. 😆 We always tell people in our falconry classes with the owls that you are now on Owl Time. An owl like Guinness the Eurasian Eagle Owl is an ambush predator- the food comes to them. So that means watching and waiting. They have the waiting part down pat. Sometimes when Owl TV is really good, we get to wait a little longer. But you can always tell when Guinn mean business, the squat, plop, and stare means he is ready to roll