Les Rance, Editor, The Parrot Society UK |
www.theparrotsocietyuk.org
|
les.rance@
mindful of the effects of our recent weather for breeders attempting to breed in aviaries. We had a really hot week in the second week of August and I received a number of reports of adults not feeding their youngsters presumably because of the very high heat levels being experienced. You would have thought that the excess heat in a nest box would escape out of the entrance hole, that, however is not the case as the heat circulates around the inside of the box getting warmer all the time. The best way to remedy this is to take the top off of the box and then the hot air does escape. If you are worried about the youngsters coming out of the box too soon through the top I place a sheet of heavy wire usually 12 gauge on the top of the box, this solves this particular problem very well. Like most long hot spells in UK summers these weather episodes often culminate in thunderstorms and this is just what has happened in the last few days which can frighten youngsters that have recently left the nest box or hens that are incubating their eggs. I have ¾ of the top of my aviaries covered with glass fibre sheeting and place the nest boxes under this protection as it stops the torrential rain getting into the boxes and making the bottom of the boxes too wet. This year has seen the Coronavirus lockdown which has changed the lives for many of us with many people being furloughed from work. Difficulties shopping, through fear many people not
04 BIRD SCENE
INTRODUCT A
s I write this introduction in middle of August 2020 I am
wanting to go to hospital for fairly important treatment and few venturing to Accident & Emergency departments. Deaths associated to the virus are already over 41,600 and people have been confined to their homes for long periods. Fortunately, it appears that things are starting to improve. Unfortunately we have had to cancel The National Exhibition scheduled for Sunday 4th October at Stafford because we could see that it would have been impossible to run this event due to the Social Distancing requirements set out in government guidelines. At least bird keepers and breeders have a good hobby to give us something else to think about and carry on doing from our homes, we are ‘lucky’ that we can continue to enjoy our hobby, there are many others that are not so fortunate, certainly anyone who has a hobby involving sport has been very badly hit. Let us just hope that this nasty virus can be beaten and that we do not have another round of it in 2021. Believe it or not, it is now well over three years since the up-listing of African Grey parrots that had been added to Annex ‘A’ of CITES on 4th February 2017 and we are still advising people on what is required from DEFRA to ensure that all Greys that are sold have the correct Article 10 papers. If you are thinking of buying an African Grey you must ensure it comes with the yellow CITES documentation, it is an offence to buy a Grey if it is not correctly licenced. Dare I mention Brexit? At this time two years ago I wrote ‘What is starting to
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