bird handling skills...

...on day 2 of the Kanyana Skills and Orientation day.

Blimey.What an action packed six hours! I am sipping a well earned glass of red while writing this:)

Today we experienced Bilby ( a desert dwelling marsupial) husbandry as part of the Kanyana Breeding program, one of the most successful in Australia. This now endangered species is nocturnal so we had to wake up 'Marron' ( a nine year old Bilby..100 years in our age!) while we learned to clean his nesting box and tidy up his enclosure.
Being an old lad, he has a heater in his box on winter nights and his food bowls are wedged open so he doesn't have to work too hard for his tucker. M fathered his last baby aged seven and is now living out a life in his retirement home :)

Then onto Isolation where bobtails are recovering from bobtail flu (oh yes, the one I took in some months ago, and blipped, is fully recovered and released) and birds with a variety of infectious diseases. So successful has Kanyana been in identifying parasites etc that they discovered a new one, now named for them!

Lots more in between and the final was bird handling. Ethically it is not possible to demonstrate using live birds ( on the job experience will be the way to go) so this is Sarah D with a couple of her aviary of glove puppets!!
Parrots are tricky little blighters and handling skills to be learned with time.
The parrot on the right is the New Zealand Kea which we are unlikely to encounter but Aus is parrot central and there are several being cared for at the moment.

I could ramble on but I'm sure there will be many blips to follow.
I start as a fully fledged vollie in two weeks time.
Scary because there is SO much to know, but very exciting.