a bird’s blood has a totally different makeup than ours. their blood is super slow to clot. this means birds can bleed out from seemingly minor injuries.
keep styptic powder on hand. styptic powder can often stop bleeding from small nicks, for example a nail clipping gone wrong. please keep your avian vet’s number handy, too!
Today is all about the greys! Specifically, we’re discussing a little bit about the two species of African grey parrots – congo and timneh. African greys are among the most recognizable of pet parrots simply due to their reputation for being incredibly intelligent, sensitive birds. With a long lifespan of 70 years or more with good care, African greys are a huge commitment for any bird owner to undertake.
The genus Psittacus has two species within it – the Congo African grey (Psittacus erithacus), and the Timneh African grey (Psittacus timneh). They are very similar in looks and behavior to each other, but there are a couple differences that make it easy to tell. If you’ve spotted them by now, good! If not, I’ll go through them with you under the comparison image shown below.
Pictured above: Differences between a Timneh African grey and a Congo African Grey.
With a side-by-side comparison, it seems a little bit easier to point out the differences between the two. Timnehs are typically a little bit smaller than Congos – Timnehs average around 9-11 inches in length with a 13-15 inch wingspan, while Congos average 14-16 inches in length with an 18-20 inch wingspan. Timnehs may have darker plumage (though not always), and also have a horn-colored upper mandible instead of the black that Congos have.
Timnehs also have a tendency to start mimicking words earlier in life than Congos (around 6 months of age), while Congos usually don’t begin to mimic until around a year of age. Timnehs are also regarded as more stable in personality than Congos by some. Of course, all birds are individuals, so not all African greys will adhere to this.
African greys are among the most intelligent of the parrot species, having the intellectual capacity of a 5-year-old and the emotional capacity of a 2-year-old. They are excellent mimics, being able to imitate human speech and other sounds they hear throughout their lives. Some African greys will even learn sounds such as phone ringtones or door knocks in order to trick their owners!
Greys, unfortunately, are also frequently victims of feather-plucking due to lack of stimulation or enrichment by their owners. If you have a grey or plan to get one in the future, ensure that they have plenty of toys, a variety of healthy foods, and lots of interesting activities to perform. These are very intelligent birds that require a lot of work on the part of their owner!
Now that we know a little more about greys, it’s time for Grey Wednesday! If you’ve got a grey, show me! If not, go out there and find me something interesting about African greys!
greys have now been bred to develop color mutations, including this stunning
I need to get more grape jelly, they are still coming quite regularly! That male was a surprise though (with added Finch photobomb, nevermind the dirty lens, there was a rain shower.)
teflon brand cookware and other nonstick cookware produce fumes when heated than can kill birds in under an hour. this doesn’t apply to just pet parrots, it applies to finches, doves, toucans – ANY bird. it doesn’t matter if your birds are in the kitchen or not; even if they are on a different floor altogether, the fumes can affect them. please get rid of your nonstick cookware if you have birds in the house!
Thus is super important, and also to be honest I’ve found ceramic cookware to be much better quality & longer lasting. Washes better, cooks better and of course safer.
Your bird can still be affected by smoke and things when cooking though, so still be very careful about having your bird in the room when you’re cooking!
Just kidding, guys. These birds are just trolling the hell out of ants. I really, really wanted to show you this clip of a Galapagos finch or something harassing the shit out of formica ants and then being all “Yes, yes, bathe me in your fury! Your chemical defenses are now my own! Mwahahahaha!”, but the closest thing I could find is this video of David Attenborough pissing off some wood ants. It was basically like that, only instead of an Englishman with a stick, it was a bird stomping around with its wings spread just being an absolute asshole about everything.
This behavior is actually called anting, and there are two types of anting that birds can engage in. One is just anting, where birds will rub ants all over themselves to get that precious, precious formic acid all up in their feathers. They’ll also do it with mothballs, cigarette butts, and certain sorts of beetles and millipedes. The other one is passive anting, where a particularly lazy bird will find an anthill and just flop down on it with all their feathers spread and puffed and annoy the ants until they hop to and try to make them leave, at which point the bird rubs its wings together and goes “Yeeeeeess.”
They do this to get rid of external parasites, because external parasites are annoying. Ant-eating birds who do this are getting a two-for deal out of it, because they get the ants to empty their acid sacs in a beneficial location (the bird’s feathers) and then get to eat them without having to deal with the acid in their crops, so it’s basically like if your bug-spray or deoderant came in a bacon bottle.
Formica ants get the brunt of this, because they’re super-common and quite frequently spray the acid instead of trying to inject it, so the bird can get itself doused and then preen it into its feathers. Considering the spraying of acid is like the ant way of saying “Oh my god go away you dickhead I hate you we all hate you why are you still here jesus christ what is wrong with you,” we can be reasonably sure that they’re not super-thrilled by this bird behavior. Since the birds keep doing it, we can be reasonably sure that they don’t care about the ants’ feelings.
I can’t stop laughing at the text Why can’t every science book be written like this?
My sister and I see pigeons do this all the time too, we were kind of freaked because I was afraid the ants were hurting the pigeons.
But now I know. They were doing to to get rid of those nasty parasites.
Clever clever birdies c:
Whispers: yes, avians do this (but with any farms / artificial oils and acids haha)
today's bird 