Animal Diaries Archive

Juliette The Jabiru

10 September 2004

What a doozie of a week! The best part is the exciting news that we have another two young whipper-snappers in the Rainforest Aviary to gloat about. Yep, we were pleasantly surprised to see two young Blue-Faced Parrot Finches making a hell of a racquet, chasing mum and dad around the aviary, begging for a feed. After a little jig and a skip or two, we settled down, called photography and captured the moment on film. As you can see, they are definitely little beauties!

All's good in the downy little world of the Red-Collared Lorikeets. From their photos you can see what a great job their parents are doing and how much they’ve grown since last week. We are looking forward to next week when we show you more photos, because by then they will be covered in pin feathers and be looking just jim dandy.

Another week, another profile and this week we have another Black-Necked Stork to introduce to you. These unique, tall and graceful Aussie birds were once widely distributed throughout Australia's northern and eastern coasts. They are now disappearing, mainly due to the loss of habitat through human encroachment.

With their keen eyesight and lightning-fast bill, Black-Necked Storks prey on such food items as fish, eels, reptiles, rodents, and frogs living in and around the rivers and wetlands that they often inhabit.

Juliette is the long, red-legged lady Black-Necked Stork we would like to introduce. With her beautiful big yellow eyes (males have black eyes) she is a stunning specimen and a real head-turner, who often gets looked up and down!

Juliette has been with us for about spot on a year now, and she would be about three and a half years old. Juliette was born in the wild, but fell from her nest and badly injured her right leg. She was rescued and hand-raised from a young age and would not have survived in the wild.