Quail and pigeons in zoos?

By Birding-Aus, on March 16th, 2015

Dear all, We’re looking at recording natural call amplitude variation for a range of quail and pigeon species for a research project. We have all the required licenses and ethics permits. We’re seeking to calibrate our automated recorders so that we can then detect calling birds via the recordings during surveys, but to do that we need to know how loud each species is to calculate detection distances and probabilities. Given field populations are scant at present and largely not calling, we thought it might be possible to record captive birds as a work around prior to spring. We’ve tried calling a few zoos to locate populations, but the species we’re interested in aren’t exactly huge public draw cards, so often information on whether or not they are being held is difficult to get. We are looking at Crested Pigeons, either bronzewing species and any of the Australian quail species. Does anyone know of zoos/parks that might have aviary populations of any of these species that we can contact? Thanks in advance, Paul McDonald

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bill

March 18, 2015 at 2:11 pm

Received from Sheena Gillman (sheena@naturesound.com.au). Replies to her direct, please. Can you tell the quail chap I saw king quail in a camp site at Armidale in nth nsw. They were in an aviary do parrot sp. need to check if still there. Thanks Sent from my iPad

pratincole08

March 17, 2015 at 7:05 am

The main reason zoos and other aviaries have various quail spp in the cages is to clean up any seeds and other bits and pieces dropped by the larger birds above. Much of this matter would otherwise go mouldy and be wasted. T. inal Message—– Philip Veerman Sent: Monday, 16 March 2015 2:23 PM Cc: birding-aus@birding-aus.org Interesting question. In my visits to zoos I like to take notice of what is in the enclosures, compared to what the labels on the cages say is in the enclosures. It is quite regular for aviaries to have parrots and other larger birds correctly marked (or not) and yet things like King Quails are not mentioned (they are of course the most common). As for the zoos having information at hand, whether incomplete labels equates to that they don’t hold the information in the records in their office, is an interesting question. To lesser extent I notice this includes Stubble Quail, sometimes (I’ve seen several) Painted Button-quail and Black-breasted Button-quail and various rails and others. Possibly these may be only temporary housing of birds to be moved elsewhere or rehabilitated. The advantage of captives is you know where they are. As zoos are often noisy I wonder if asking people via the avicultural society would be better. Most people who have an aviary with finches would have King Quails (I certainly did – in the 1970s) and many would have the others. Surely wild Crested Pigeons are easy to find. Plenty in my garden. They are not loud. Philip —–Original Message—– Paul McDonald Sent: Monday, 16 March 2015 1:02 PM Dear all, We’re looking at recording natural call amplitude variation for a range of quail and pigeon species for a research project. We have all the required licenses and ethics permits. We’re seeking to calibrate our automated recorders so that we can then detect calling birds via the recordings during surveys, but to do that we need to know how loud each species is to calculate detection distances and probabilities. Given field populations are scant at present and largely not calling, we thought it might be possible to record captive birds as a work around prior to spring. We’ve tried calling a few zoos to locate populations, but the species we’re interested in aren’t exactly huge public draw cards, so often information on whether or not they are being held is difficult to get. We are looking at Crested Pigeons, either bronzewing species and any of the Australian quail species. Does anyone know of zoos/parks that might have aviary populations of any of these species that we can contact? Thanks in advance, Paul McDonald

g.corkeron

March 16, 2015 at 5:39 pm

I am pretty sure I saw an aviary full of them at Phillip Island Wildlife Park when I was there in January, Paul: http://www.piwildlifepark.com.au Gerard

pveerman

March 16, 2015 at 1:52 pm

Interesting question. In my visits to zoos I like to take notice of what is in the enclosures, compared to what the labels on the cages say is in the enclosures. It is quite regular for aviaries to have parrots and other larger birds correctly marked (or not) and yet things like King Quails are not mentioned (they are of course the most common). As for the zoos having information at hand, whether incomplete labels equates to that they don’t hold the information in the records in their office, is an interesting question. To lesser extent I notice this includes Stubble Quail, sometimes (I’ve seen several) Painted Button-quail and Black-breasted Button-quail and various rails and others. Possibly these may be only temporary housing of birds to be moved elsewhere or rehabilitated. The advantage of captives is you know where they are. As zoos are often noisy I wonder if asking people via the avicultural society would be better. Most people who have an aviary with finches would have King Quails (I certainly did – in the 1970s) and many would have the others. Surely wild Crested Pigeons are easy to find. Plenty in my garden. They are not loud. Philip —–Original Message—– Paul McDonald Sent: Monday, 16 March 2015 1:02 PM Dear all, We’re looking at recording natural call amplitude variation for a range of quail and pigeon species for a research project. We have all the required licenses and ethics permits. We’re seeking to calibrate our automated recorders so that we can then detect calling birds via the recordings during surveys, but to do that we need to know how loud each species is to calculate detection distances and probabilities. Given field populations are scant at present and largely not calling, we thought it might be possible to record captive birds as a work around prior to spring. We’ve tried calling a few zoos to locate populations, but the species we’re interested in aren’t exactly huge public draw cards, so often information on whether or not they are being held is difficult to get. We are looking at Crested Pigeons, either bronzewing species and any of the Australian quail species. Does anyone know of zoos/parks that might have aviary populations of any of these species that we can contact? Thanks in advance, Paul McDonald

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Quail and pigeons in zoos?

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