By Charlotte Dean
Chough breeding pair bonds
This month, the aviary has been surprisingly quiet. Now that the fledgling season and drought is over on the Island; the choughs seem to be less frantic when it comes to gaining sustenance within the aviary. Choughs arrive to the feed in small trickles on the majority of days. The young choughs are arriving earlier than the adults to wing-beg at the keepers and presumably to get their fill before the adults take over feeding stands. The lack of food desperation is allowing adult pairs in the flock to express their affections towards their partners more often as of late. As choughs are generally monogamous, it’s brilliant to see that the parent pairs of this breeding season still have a great bond. This can be observed as pairs allopreen and/or feed one another. Hopefully they will bring more success in their next breeding season.
Queen Elizabeth II
The choughs have seen some big events in Jersey since 2013 and on 8th September they were witness to the passing of HRH Queen Elizabeth after 70 years on the throne. The Queen has been known locally as ‘Duke of Normandy’ and toasted as ‘La Reine, notre duc‘ (‘The Queen, Our Duke’), although this tradition can be very confusing. Jersey had a public holiday for the funeral on 19th September and the Zoo was shut that day; but for the team, and the choughs, life went on.
Eyes, head, legs & feet.
What are we referring to? Ticks of course! They don’t only affect mammals; they affect all species, so that includes birds. It’s come to that time of the year where the ticks become more active. A bite from a tick can spark many detrimental cascading affects in both birds and mammals. This means the keepers need to be extra vigilant when it comes to monitoring their birds. Thankfully, as choughs have a communal based social life it poses less of a threat due to their mutual preening.
Strimming in session
It may still be a hot September so far; but the drop in temperature from the past few months has allowed the keepers to change their priorities to some well needed vegetation clearing. The hedgerow to the right of aviary was becoming so over-grown that the team couldn’t see over the bank to the field behind. The view isn’t a necessity but is useful to see what and/or where the choughs are if they haven’t braved (or bothered?) going inside the aviary for the supplementary feed. But it’s not just the view that this over-grown bank causes as a problem; it also greatly reduces the functionality of the hatch wires. The wires can easily get tangled between the fern and other vegetation on the bank. Now that it’s been cleared, we should be able to carry out more catch-ups in the future if necessary, with ease – if the choughs don’t out smart us!
Rodent activity
Although in Jersey we’re now starting to get some wet weather, it seems that a few furry friends are still making their way into the Sorel aviary to make use of our water tray and likely, some free food. As we have no intention in trapping protected species, the team came up with a great idea to try and identify the culprits, on camera with the use of camera traps. However, we’ve not managed to get any footage of our four-legged friends. So far, the main footage captured has been magpies enjoying a good bathe. The rodent population may have foiled us so far, but the camera traps did make light by capturing some rather elegant footage of two choughs drinking from the water tray in synchronous drinking.
A very special guest
On 28th September we were very pleased to show Max Benatar, visiting the Island from Germany for a course at Durrell, the choughs at Sorel. Max is no stranger to the birds; he was our student in 2014 and formed a great affection for the chough flock. While Max was proud to have been part of the project and to learn of its ongoing success, he was possibly most pleased to catch up with an old favourite, Dingle. The photographs show that Max has changed his appearance over the years, while, and take it from us, Dingle looks just the same!
