Beer Can Hill

Barn Owls can be found all over the world. The World Owl Trust has a wonderful site about how you can help owls in your region.

World Turtle Day was started by the American Tortoise Rescue. Turtles and tortoises die every day due to the destruction and abuse that humans inflict on them.

ATR says that these are things that we can do to stop this:

• Never buy a turtle or tortoise as it increases demand from the wild. Adopt from a rescue.

• Don’t take turtles or tortoises from the wild unless they are sick or injured. If they are crossing a busy street, pick them up and send them in the same direction they were going – if you try to make them go back, they will turn right around again.

• Write letters to legislators asking them to keep sensitive habitat preserved or closed to off road vehicles.

• Report cruelty or illegal sales of turtles and tortoises to your local animal control department, Fish & Game or the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

• Report any turtle or tortoise of any kind less than four inches being sold at pet stores or Mercados. This practice is illegal everywhere in the U.S.

HSUS lists some other ideas here.

I would like to add that as a general rule, turtles and tortoises can live a long time. Many species grow to be fairly large. Hatchlings are cute, but if you live in a studio apartment and have no plans to “upgrade”… please research the animal you are adopting. People also need to keep in mind that turtles and tortoises are not domesticated like dogs and cats are. They can become accustomed to living with people, but they still manifest most of their natural behaviors such as hibrenating and digging.

In late 2008 I moved to a house in urban Fresno,California. Despite its many shortcomings as a city and county, Fresno does have an excellent recycling program. The Tower District also has an active group of guerilla gardeners.

I’ve been “living green” before I even knew what the term meant!My grandfathers were hunters and farmers. They taught my parents not to be wasteful or irresponsible, and my parents passed that down to my sister and I. We had a well and limited hot water on our property and were taught to never waste water or energy. Western Fence Lizards and toads took care of any insect problems we had. There was no trash service, so we separated organic waste and used a trash compactor for the rest before hauling it to town.

Many farmers and other residents in rural Fresno county use owl boxes. Barn owls are excellent hunters and they keep a cap on the rodent population. This also keeps both humans and other animals safe because rodent poison does not discriminate on who it kills.

_{I don’t know the names of these flowers.}

I am fortunate that my house already had an established yard by an accomplished gardener when I moved in. I still don’t know the official names of all of my inherited plants, but I have done my best to keep them alive and have had very few casualties.

My major green project for 2008-2009 has been to turn my yard in to a sanctuary for urban wildlife – birds, squirrels, and helpful insects like bees and butterflies. I don’t use pesticides or herbicides.

_{This pecan tree & bird bath combination is popular with both birds and red tree squirrels.}

I offer the wild birds vitamin-enriched seed. They also receive all of the food discarded by my parrots. Sometimes my yard also attracts new friends who need assistance. Fresh water is readily available and I am careful not to allow water to stagnate and attract mosquitoes. I would like to find out if introducing toads or fence lizards would be appropriate for my setting.

_{If the window is open, my macaws enjoy talking to the wild birds that visit this bird bath.}

I planted a lot of wildflower seeds in March but did not have a lot of success with them.

_{A wildflower I successfully grew.}

The poppies came with the house. I love them. They remind me of Interstate 5 between Bakersfield and Los Angeles, and of Lancaster.

_{California poppies.}

I also have a small compost heap and have introduced earthworms in to my soil.

_{Earthworm eggs.}

I am currently researching koi ponds because I hope to one day install one. However, I am not sure if they are energy efficient or if they would be hazardous to my tortoise Merlin. Most large tortoise species enjoy mud holes but they can’t actually swim. I don’t know very much about koi fish yet, but I’m assuming they don’t want to share their home with a nosey tortoise!

_{Bottlebrush plants are drought-resistant and attract bees & hummingbirds.}

California may be facing a drought. I will be adding drought-resistant plants, time and income permitting. I also plan to plant a small vegetable garden. Merlin, my pet birds, and I eat a lot of fresh vegetables and I believe that it’s important that we have access to them.

Working in the yard is a challenge for me sometimes because I am partially disabled and have severe pollen allergies. But so far, the awards have outweighed my discomfort!

In the past week I finished reading Parrot Culture: Our 2500-Year-Long Fascination with the World’s Most Talkative Bird The book was published in 2004 but I had never heard of it until I happened upon it at the county library. Its academic format was a little dry for my academic-drop-out taste, but I learned a lot about how humans have treated parrots throughout history.

Mr. Boehrer reminds us that parrots have existed on 5 of the 6 continents in the world. He doesn’t explicitly say so, but his book shows how humans have done parrots more harm than good.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Psittacula eupatria."][/caption]

Alexander The Great was the first person to import parrots from India in to Europe. We know these parrots as “Alexandrine Parakeets”, or Psittacula eupatria. Charles IV of France kept one as a pet. The Vatican had parrots on its property as early as the 15th century.

Boehrer points out that parrots were among the first animals to be exported from the New World in to the Old World. Christopher Columbus allegedly recorded seeing parrots when he landed in the Caribbean. Explorer Pedro Cabral “discovered” Brazil in 1500 and also wrote about the parrots he found there.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="90" caption="Cacatua alba."][/caption]

The Sultan Of Babylon gave The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, leader of the 6th Crusade, an Umbrella Cockatoo (Cacatua alba) as a gift.

Parrots have not always been pets or trophies. Indigenous cultures such as Australia’s Aborigines have hunted parrots for food. Ancient Romans considered them an exotic delicacy. Medieval Europeans believed that talking parrots were supernatural. Many believed that parrots were the birds mentioned in The Bible’s Revelations 19:17-18:

¹⁷And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, ¹⁸ so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great.” [New International Version]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="132" caption="Not all pirates had parrots."][/caption]

Parrots became very popular as pets after Robert Louis Stevenson published Treasure Island in 1883. His book is partially responsible for the pirate/parrot cliche we now see in popular culture.

U.S. Presidents Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant, William McKinely, and Theodore Roosevelt kept parrots in The White House. Boehrer says that President McKinely’s double-yellow headed Amazon was very popular with White House guests because it often shouted “Oh, look at all the pretty girls!”

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="144" caption="U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt had a Hyacinth Macaw named Eli. He was afraid of the bird's beak, but there is no record of Eli being a "biter"."][/caption]

First Ladies Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, and Grace Coolidge also had pet parrots.

Parrots were not popular as pets in the beginning of the 20th Century due to the widespread fear of “parrot fever”, aka psittacosis.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="98" caption="Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos are not the best companion pets."][/caption]

Many people refer to cockatoos as “Baretta Birds.” This is because of the television series called Baretta, which aired from 1975 to 1978. It depicted an unrealistic relationship between main character Tony Baretta and a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Fred. As a result, pet cockatoos were a fad in the mid 1970s and many people learned the hard way that few, if any, cockatoos are like Fred.

The African Grey Parrot also experienced a similar surge in popularity with the literary appearance of Methuselah in Barbara Kingslover’s 1994 novel, The Poisonwood Bible.

Bruce Boehrer explains in Parrot Culture that humans are the reason why we now have more parrots in captivity than we do in the wild. Excessive capture, hunting, extermination, and habitat destruction have already caused our permanent loss of species such as the Carolina Parakeet and Cuban Macaw. Most macaw and cockatoo species are now endangered or non-existent in the wild.

Humans are also responsible for the feral parrot populations that now exist in Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, southern Florida, Connecticut, Chicago, Brooklyn, Phoenix & Scottsdale in Arizona, San Francisco, and parts of southern California that include Bakersfield. The existence of these flocks continues to be controversial.

I think that anybody interested in parrots and/or history would be interested in this book. I also feel that people should be realistically educated on pet parrots and conservation issues. I stand by my belief that a parrot should never be brought in to your home just because you want a colorful “talking” pet.

January 5th is National Bird Day in the USA. While I readily support conservation and education efforts towards all bird species, I don’t like how the organizations behind this event tend to imply that I am a bad person for keeping my flock caged part of the time. I do not cage my 2 macaws, 4 cockatiels, and sparrow to be oppressive or abusive. It’s for their own safety since I have no massive rainforest enclosure for them to reside in 24-7.

My sparrow Wally fell out of her parents’ nest before she could fly. She was rescued and hand-raised by a prison inmate. At that time I was an officer at that prison and I was also that inmate’s work supervisor. When he was told that he could no longer keep Wally in his cell he asked me if I would take her. She was, and still is, quite tame. When I spoke with local wildlife rehabilitators I was advised that Wally would probably not survive if released in to the wild. I was also told that sparrows, like pigeons, were not considered native species and shouldn’t be in the USA to begin with.

I do not advocate the removal of wild birds from their habitats, but I do advocate their conservation and rescue. Ideally, wild animals are probably better off wild if they have an appropriate environment to be wild in. Many, if not all, of the parrot species kept in captivity are endangered in the wild due to habitat destruction. Some species, such as the Spix’s Macaw, would not exist today if they weren’t kept in captivity.

My Illiger’s Macaw Rusty is 3rd or 4th generation captive-bred. She was hatched and human-raised in Bakersfield,California. She has no idea how to navigate the South American rainforest, defend herself from hawks, or find the lava rocks macaws use in the wild to help them digest otherwise toxic seeds and nuts. I don’t think that this bothers Rusty. To date, she does not scream or self-mutilate. She spends most of the day talking and playing with her toys. In short, she has no business in the wild, even if she had a “wild” to live in.

Parrots are not easy to live with, but there are resources available to those who share their homes with them. I think that it’s important that we treat them respect whether they’re in our living rooms or their native lands.