Animal Diaries Archive

Christmas and Queto

29 December 2006

This week was Christmas. For the keepers, it means that we still have to check and feed our animals, even though the park is closed for the day. So for the Bird Show Department, Jodi and Jason put their hands up to come in and do this important job. The birds all got an extra Christmas feed and they all enjoyed the day off.

When Jason came in in the afternoon, he said that all of the birds were very excited when he showed up as they had not seen anyone all day. And that is odd for them, as they are used to seeing hundreds of people. The weather on Christmas day was fantastic, but from Boxing Day onwards it has rained.

Having this rain has been fantastic, but one of the birds is not so keen on it. Queto the Blue and Gold Macaw (pictured in this week's photo on a nice sunny day, just the way Queto likes it) does not like it to be raining when he has to do his show. Part of his routine is to roll over on the grass in the middle of the Crocoseum. The problem is that the grass is wet, and no one likes going to sleep in a wet bed. The funny thing is he also does not like the rain touching him on the head. Every time a drop hits him in the head he looks up to the sky wandering what is going on. At the moment it doesn’t seem to matter how many times it happens, he still is bemused by where this water is coming from. Queto, during these rainy days, does like to spend most of his time actually up in the stands, under the roof where he can't get hit in the head by those nasty rain drops. Queto certainly is one of our more unique individuals.