What comes first, the chicken, the egg, or you? - Thoughts on problematic approaches in bird keeping.

 

In the grand scheme of modern internet culture and wider life, things can get er... complicated.

I haven't really sat down to write over the summer, I've been busy working on myself with the sudden realisation that in a few more years I'll be ancient (in keeper/dog years!) and I don't want to be any more of a worn out old Birdman than I have to be. A lot has been on my mind both personally and professionally and I've had plenty of time to think about a whole load of things.

One thing that has been on my mind more than anything has been "why do we do this?" and more so all the unusual types of keeper I have encountered through the years that have confounded and baffled me.

In the past I have had so many conversations with all sorts of fellow bird keepers, both private and professional and so many seem to have encountered similar, yet it's rarely addressed anywhere in any meaningful way.

It occurred to me that maybe there's a whole load of keepers out there that could do with the comfort that they are not alone and there are (in my opinion of course) right ways and wrong ways to look at keeping.

Palm Cockatoos mating at Leeds Castle in England, UK - This will add up later, but who doesn't like the idea of more Palms in the world?

 

This post will be less of a husbandry critique and more of an analysis of the internal qualities and maybe a few of the "deadly sins" of caring for birds in general.

To be clear, this is aimed at nobody in particular, but a coagulation of decades of casual observation and moments that gave me, to use the modern parlance "The ick".

To start out, for those who have maybe been taught by or worked with me in the past, one of my often used mantras is relevant here - "Some people like being keepers more than they like keeping". 

What this means boiled down, is that some are motivated more by the idea of being a keeper rather than what it means to keep birds. In that sense I've been able to see the transition since the 90s from self focussed keepers attending authentic social meets to network with others to a more modern social media led culture where keepers are not only spending a huge amount of time on social media, but having to actively promote themselves like their own demented PR agent within their industry or circle, either for professional advancement or more nefariously just social clout. It's an unusual trend which is not going to go away, but it has led to a hundredfold increase in the sorts of "being a keeper" behaviours rather than "keeping" behaviours, if that makes any sort of sense at all.

Now being honest, this is fairly harmless in the main and seldom do any animals suffer from this sort of behaviour except in extreme circumstances (and I trust you will know those instances when you see them right?), but it does propagate a culture that leads the person on the street and young potential keepers with very skewed ideas of what it is to be a good bird keeper.

Anyway, that baseline set, let us crack on with a list of little red flags that always concern me when I see them, because you didn't ask for them, but you're here, so let's go.

1. Anthropomorphic projection

Oh boy, the cardinal sin, the Elephant bird in the room.

 

Anthropomorphism

/ˌanθrəpəˈmɔːfɪz(ə)m/

noun

noun: anthropomorphism

the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object.

 

Any sensible keeper knows that their birds are birds and not people, but you would be amazed how often I see people wildly attributing human characteristics onto their birds, both at home or at work.

Sure, we spend a lot of time around our birds, but the focus of all of our interactions HAS to be based around their natural behaviour and not ours. As humans I find in absence of knowledge we tend to transpose what we do know onto a situation, which I suppose, often leads to this crime of ignorance and sometimes just indulgence.

One of the most offensive spectacles I witness regularly is keepers engaging in physical behaviour that is socially inappropriate for the species they keep on the basis that the bird enjoys it. A common example of this is when individuals have raised a bird for whatever reason and then insist on continuing to be its "parent" for the rest of its life - Yuck. If an individual was raised the natural way it's real parents would quickly push it to independence for it's own good so that it can socially function amongst it's fellow birds, and if it were to encounter it's parents again in later years, it would likely not behave like a perpetual chick, yet these sad dysfunctional animals continue to appear on social media and real life, being endlessly coddled by a human for the keeper's own one sided benefit - this doesn't help the bird at all.

 The second common issue I often see here is situations where people engage in courtship behaviours with birds, again often hand reared ones, which for similar reasons to "parenting" are misleading for the bird and will likely lead to more and more problematic behaviours. Once more this is a sin of ignorance, indulgence or both, and is a bloody horrid thing to do to your birds (which I know of course you don't do right?). Classic example here is parrots, the amount of times I see keepers touching birds in areas of the body that are considered socially as "mate areas", for context here there are a similar set of areas in humans, consider a stranger approaches you and puts their hand on your shoulder, that would instantly be recognised as a neutral, friendly interaction, but if for instance, they placed their hand on the lower part of your back, that is of course an instant sign of something else entirely. The same is true for birds, and by touching them in certain ways, we are sending certain messages and writing social cheques we have no ability or intention to cash. Generally speaking, in parrot culture, heads and feet are "friend zones", this is where flock mates would physically interact with the bird via preening, but under wings, under the tummy and vent, and in females in particular touching the back are all very much "time to get fruity" zones, and engaging any parrot in this way makes a suggestion that the bird will take literally, which if you consider the long term and constant physical and behavioural nature of parrot pair bonding, you are in absolutely no position to fulfil, nor should you. Kissing your bird anywhere, particularly on the beak, emulates pair co feeding or parental regurgitation feeding and is also wildly confusing and in many cases pretty stupid.

To add onto this, another non physical consideration is that birds communicate much of their intention vocally or via display, which means at times, you can be unintentionally sending mixed or erroneous signals to birds by participating or mimicking those behaviours. One fairly famous example that is often seen is a Shoebill stork "bowing" and that human visitors need to bow back. This is courtship behaviour, not the kind of human respect gesture we might expect. To that end, every visitor is not participating in some cute social custom, but merely entering a bird's territory, proposing pair courtship, and then leaving... endlessly. The same is often seen in birds like cockatoos where their flamboyant "dancing" is seen as an expression of musical joy, but again, this is often part of wider social displays that MEAN things to the bird that you can't necessarily detect. It is no coincidence that these flamboyant displays in so many species can often end in confusing and hormonal aggression towards the keeper or a bystander, because what is being sown here is just that, confusion.

 

A Summer Tanager interacts with it's reflections to no productive end. In a way we can think of misleading interactions with our own birds to be just as confusing and frustrating as this mirror.

 

Just to touch on the keeper aspect here (and this may trigger some folks so hold tight) there are two kinds of people when it comes to this, those who just don't know any better and are doing their best with what they know, and to them my suggestion would be to study up on the natural behaviours of your species so you can really learn how to understand your birds and their needs; this is truly the closest you can get to actually “speaking” to your charges, so much of their communication is non vocal, so its worth doing for you and your birds.

The second type do it because it they know better but it makes them feel good either to have another organism socially crippled and dependent on them OR because of the extra social attention it gleans for them to have a “relationship” with such a wonderful animal.

My brutal advice to them would be to get a grip, you are a grown ass human and know better than to cause unneeded confusion and social stress to your birds, they deserve as well adjusted a natural life as you can offer them no matter their background. Ask yourself honestly, is this for them? both of you? or just you?

And no matter what someone told you, or who else does it, you are responsible for your birds, the buck stops with you. You are the only one who can steer positive changes in their lives.

Don't get me wrong, I know that there are so many hand raised (intentionally or not) birds out there that have unique living situations and may be unable to live a life that we would consider normal for their species, but the keeper should never be adding to the already complex social burden these birds carry, we are there to help, not hinder and frustrate.

Outside of behavioural situations, anthropomorphism can creep into our husbandry routines, applying human preference and logic to an animal that may need or prefer something else entirely, or to counter may need you to be the tough guy and not allow them to live certain ways. I won't dwell here because in honesty it's a massive sub topic and if you'd like to read more along these lines I wrote a post earlier in the year on “dropping the chop” and how we can erroneously enforce our own preferences onto bird nutrition, so go check that out later if you like.

So all that said, lets close off on anthropomorphic projection, I think that the gist is there and you can see why understanding species behaviour is so important to know how to act right around birds, and indeed what a good keeper's place is in their bird's life. You're essentially a mix of bird butler, maid, nurse and agony aunt, and that's it. Oh the glamour.

2 – Social media

This one is simple – keepers often get really into generating virality to the point that they will obtain birds they cannot adequately care for, or manufacture fake situations to get attention from strangers online and or make extra cash. I have a few friends who keep birds and also have popular social media channels, but what they all have in common is that they are simply sharing things that their birds do, work they have done with their birds or helpful advice for other keepers. They keep birds first and broadcast socially second, not the other way around.

Some folks, in particular, more professional zoo circles tend to fall in love with the idea of being a bird keeper to the point that it almost becomes a cliché, with the image of the modern bird keeper being a khaki clad, key jangling, hosepipe coiling bag of joy, but miss all the underlaying qualities that define a truly great bird keeper, most of which require none of the above (although if you like khaki that much, you do you). 

 

Here's a Dollarbird, it has nothing to do with anything, I have just been thinking about them a lot lately, and now so can you, you're welcome.

In my experience a good fellow bird keeper cannot be easily defined by their appearance or even their initial conversations, to get a good feel for a keeper you need to see them amongst birds in a natural context. A real bird keeper can be easily judged by the fruits their birds bear rather than what they say, show or do on social media or in a conference hall.

Social media has it's place in life, but the answers to bird keeping are not there, they are out in the aviaries and the wild world.

 3 – Prioritising the wrong things

As a third and final bugbear, rubbish time management and blinkered process.

This applies to all keepers, probably more so to keepers who are working, but let's be honest, we all want to make the best of the time we have so that we can use it wisely and actually do the things we and our birds enjoy. Having good levels of discipline are critical to being a good keeper of any species and sometimes this can go so far that routines become so ingrained in our minds that we just continue them as we always have or cross transfer husbandry and practice to other species which may not require the same level of attention, or need different care.

One trait which seems common in all types of bird keeper is tidiness, sometimes to an alarming and almost pathological level, and being pragmatic, what is important to birds is good hygiene and avoidance of excessive pathogen pooling; not the shape of some topiary or the alignment of boxes in a hallway. Now of course when you have time for both, you can do both well, but I have known keepers who if given only 10 minutes to do one task of their choice would rather sweep the hallway or coil a hose perfectly than maintain some internal aspect that has a direct impact on their birds. Birds needs always have to come first, and performative human concepts like boxes being lined up have to come second. This root thought process is the issue, here not really the tasks themselves, but you get the idea.

 

Possibly the only documented time a bird has concerned itself personally with coiled hosepipes.

 

Once again we are often working with what we know and subconsciously lean away from the unknown and into the familiar, but that dovetails ultimately into the conclusion of this well intended brain dump.

WHY?

Why am I continuing these routines this way?

Why am I doing this specific task?

Why am I encouraging this behaviour?

Who is it benefiting?

Is it benefiting anyone?

What could I be doing that would work better?

If this process is actually unneeded, how could I spend this time enriching my birds life more?

Have I drank enough water today?

Jokes aside, in my experience the keys to moving forward are almost always being honest with yourself, being focussed on your birds, stepping to one side, remaining humble... and asking... WHY?

Stay Birdy.

C.

If you enjoyed this, I can write more along these lines, it seems like there are a lot of lost bird keepers out there looking for some guidance and a like minded voice but there seem to be very few outlets for this around that are direct and open about what good bird keeping entails for both birds and keeper. Let me know if this was useful to you.