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Black Swan Egg and Bowerbird

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chompie_puppy

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I thought I would show you guys the size of a Black Swan's eggs. :)



The Black Swan pair at the sanctuary have built a nest and laid a clutch. It is currently breeding season for them here in Australia. Of course we can't let the eggs hatch because otherwise we would have too many Black Swans and not enough places to house them. We don't want to separate the two to prevent breeding because Swans mate for life and that would be cruel.

So here we have collected her eggs and hollowed them out. We then proceeded to fill the eggs with Plaster of Paris. We have to constantly weigh the eggs while doing so to make sure that we maintain the correct weight for a Black Swan egg.

She has happily accepted her "fake" eggs back. :)

Next I have a photo of a Satin Bowerbird Bower! I am very, very proud of this little dude. He was orphaned as a baby and I helped with his handraising. He was put back in the aviary once weaned and has already built a very impressive Bower! :D Look at his craftmanship! And all the blue objects he collected.

It's very cute because he doesn't even have his adult plumage yet. :hehe:





Thought I would share because I'm so proud of my baby. :D
 

Bokkapooh

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I may not be remembering correctly, but arent black swans endangered? Perhaps you could let her hatch her eggs and give the offspring away? Or rehab them to the wild?

And oh that egg is HUGE and a nice shade of blue/green color:D
 

chompie_puppy

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Nope, Black Swans are super common! You can find them all over the place in my area. :) So rehabbing babies back into the wild would not be necessary and might even be detrimental to the wild population if we do it every season. We do, of course, let her hatch out her eggs if we get a request from another zoo or sanctuary looking for Black Swans to add to their collection.

They are terrible birds to look after when they are in breeding season! This breeding pair is housed in a large aviary (100m x 100m) with other birds and parrots. I was feeding out mealworms to the Black Cockatoos when Harold (the male Black Swan) came out of nowhere and started wingslapping me! :eek: A Swan can easily break your leg with a wingslap! Now I have a nice big bruise on my leg thanks to him. :rolleyes:
 

igors mum

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they are off the endangered list i think in the usa . here they are all over the place.
they are also non migratory and stay in the area they hatched out at.
love the bower birds nests. one of my clients had one on their property and she took me out to see it. all the blue straws and bottle caps cracked me up just like in your pic.wonder what the connection to blue is for them .

hope your bruised leg heals up quick. i know what that feels like i got it by a canadian goose one time ( same size as the swans)same bird also almost drowned my friends dalmation to. and it wasnt going anywheres near the bird.
 

MollyMouse

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I just love the color of the egg so pretty and HUGE!!
 

Anne & Gang

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wowwwwwwww beautiful and HUGE
 

magni

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Beautiful pictures, thank you:hug8:
 

Thugluvgrl187

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That is a big egg! Also that is a lot of blue items. Does he purposely pick out the blue or is this the color he is being offered?
 

chompie_puppy

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they are off the endangered list i think in the usa . here they are all over the place.
they are also non migratory and stay in the area they hatched out at.
love the bower birds nests. one of my clients had one on their property and she took me out to see it. all the blue straws and bottle caps cracked me up just like in your pic.wonder what the connection to blue is for them .

hope your bruised leg heals up quick. i know what that feels like i got it by a canadian goose one time ( same size as the swans)same bird also almost drowned my friends dalmation to. and it wasnt going anywheres near the bird.
They really can be very viscious when they want to be! :eek: Oh my, almost drowning a dog! That must have been a really angry bird!

I love Bowerbirds! :heart: So fascinating! Here is another photo of a female one I took. Look at her gorgeous blue eyes! That might have something to do with why the males collect blue objects? :huh:



I just love the color of the egg so pretty and HUGE!!
It really is a nice soft greenish blue colour! :)

wowwwwwwww beautiful and HUGE
Yes, gigantic! :D

Beautiful pictures, thank you:hug8:
Thanks! :D

That is a big egg! Also that is a lot of blue items. Does he purposely pick out the blue or is this the color he is being offered?
Satin Bowerbirds will purposely pick out blue objects to decorate their bowers with. There are other species of Bowerbirds that choose other coloured objects to decorate with. Some pick out white objects, some yellow, some brown.

I know the Regent Bowerbird picks out yellow objects for its bower. :)

This is a Regent Bowerbird (not my photo, just a Google one).


Once again, the object that the Regent Bowerbird picks matches their eyes. I really wonder if that plays a role in the whole thing... :huh:

Anyway, Bowerbirds are actually very fascinating. The males build this bower just to impress the females. It is not a nest and doesn't get used for anything other than attracting females. It is like a little art gallery. The males build two "walls" out of sticks and then decorate in and around it with their chosen coloured objects.

When a female comes down to have a look the male will walk her through the two walls of his bower and show off all the lovely objects he collected. :rolleyes: If she is impressed enough by his collection then they will mate and a nest will be built in a different location where she will lay and incubate her chicks.

I think there's about 10 different species of Bowerbirds in Australia. :)
 
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chompie_puppy

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I found some photos I took ages ago of a Satin Bowerbird actually building his bower. :D These were taken at Melbourne Zoo.





This poor guy still has a long way to go before he'll be bringing any girls back to his place! :D
 

expressmailtome

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That is an impressive mating ritual! The bowers look very nice!

Matt
 

chompie_puppy

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Yes, it is so intricate! The poor males go through so much effort and in the end the females might not even like their bowers! :lol:
 

robin's my baby

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wow! i have never even seen a swan let alone a black swan...would there be any way to export eggs to the u.s.?
 

CaptainCarebear

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That egg is huge! :eek: And I am not surprised at all to hear that a swan wing slapping you could break a leg or give you a huge bruise. They are fairly HUGE birds. :giggle:
 

chompie_puppy

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wow! i have never even seen a swan let alone a black swan...would there be any way to export eggs to the u.s.?
Probably not. Australia has VERY strict import and export rules in regards to animals. This is mostly to stop any diseases entering the country (because Australia doesn't have things like Rabies) and also to stop the illegal trapping and selling of native, wild birds to the overseas market. :)

That egg is huge! :eek: And I am not surprised at all to hear that a swan wing slapping you could break a leg or give you a huge bruise. They are fairly HUGE birds. :giggle:
And very aggressive! They really scare me. :o: I'm comfortable with Macaws and Cockatoos... but put a Swan in front of me and I'm out of there in seconds! :lol:

There are people who carve egg shells...could they be sold to these people to work on????:hug8:
Carved eggs Egg-Stasy Creations, LLC
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That is amazing!! So beautiful!

We have Emu and Cassowary eggs every season too! I'll definitely pass on this link to the sanctuary! I'm sure we could donate these eggs. :highfive:
 

1parakeet

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:omg:! That's a big egg! Just out of curosity, when you hollow out the eggs, nothing has started to develop yet, right?

Wait, so those other birds actually collect blue objects???? That's so cool! :laughing12:
 

chompie_puppy

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:omg:! That's a big egg! Just out of curosity, when you hollow out the eggs, nothing has started to develop yet, right?

Wait, so those other birds actually collect blue objects???? That's so cool! :laughing12:
Nope, we check on each and every bird in the sanctuary twice a day. :) So we collect the eggs as soon as they are laid. Nothing has a chance to start developing!

If we do happen to miss the egg then we just leave it with the parents. This happened to a pair of Black-winged Stilts last year. They had made a very secret nest, and by the time we discovered it, one of the eggs was already clearly developed. So we just let it hatch and now we have a little Stilt running around the aviary. :rolleyes:

Yep, Bowerbirds are very cool! The Satin Bowerbird will only collect blue objects. :D
 

1parakeet

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So, do different bowers collect only one different type of item? Like, would bower A collect blue items and bower B collect shiny items?
 

chompie_puppy

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Yes! :D The different species of Bowerbirds each collect a different coloured item. Satin Bowerbird collects blue items. Regent Bowebirds collect yellow items. Some species of Bowerbirds only collect white items and others only collect items that are a certain shade of brown.

At the sanctuary we only have the Satin Bowerbird and the Regent Bowerbird.
 
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