Animal Diaries Archive

Pigeons: Going... going... gone?

31 March 2006

We are slowly coming up to the Easter school holidays, and this time of year always proves to be very busy. For this Easter we are working on a couple of little additions to the show.

Firstly, our flock of pigeons should be ready for their little skit with the Entertainment Department, and it hasn't taken a great deal of effort to get them ready. Basically, they are a small group of homing pigeons that will simply fly away, exiting the Crocoseum and never to be seen again... Or will they? Realistically they will just have been homed back to their aviary at roving headquarters, where they should land on a platform outside their aviary and walk in through a one-way door system.

Matari the Yellow-tailed black cockatoo is striving ahead with his training, and I have no doubt that it won't be long until he is ready for his first show. All of the crew down at the Australian Wildlife Hospital are keen to see this, as they were the ones who looked after him when he first came into captive care from the wild. Unfortunately he had been brought into captive care after falling from the nest. He has had several attempted releases with local carers, but has returned home each time. He is smart enough to know where the good stuff comes from! He has come a very long way in his training and is ever so close to going out in the free flight show for all of the public to enjoy.