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Sunday, November 22, 2009

H4N1 escape!

While cleaning the aviary today I didn't pay much attention to the bird and just think that since the bird is get used to me around the aviary, I could just leave the cage door open for couple seconds.  Boy, I was wrong! While turn around to grab the broom with the cage door open (btw, the door is small and near the ground.  The bird is perch up high in the aviary), the bird just flew out and perch on the lemon tree nearby.  My heart just skips a beat for that moment, hehe.  Had a shama bird escape, and witness and help my friend catch an escape bird before, I remain calm and not chasing the bird to try to catch it back.  This is very important if you have the bird escape accidentally.  Never chase the bird with a net to catch it!  The more you chase the farther the bird will fly away and might cause the bird too scare to remember its location and get lost and won't return.  I catch a gleam of the direction the bird heading out, and immediately hang the bamboo cage with the opposite sex (in this case, the male H1N1 shama) near the tree that the escape bird hide in.  I also bring several bamboo cages with plenty of live food inside and hang near the lemon tree.  With her favorite live food inside the bamboo cages around the area, I turn on the shama songs CD and sit back, relax (just kidding), and wait for her to go hungry enough to fly in the bamboo cage to catch her favorite insect.  Did I mention I also pray? hehe, I did!  Losing a bird, especially the white-rumped shama is devastating to my breeding project, and certainly the bird won't be able to survive outside environment for a few days where crow, hawk, and mockingbird can eat or scare the shama, plus there won't be enough insects to eat.  Luckily, after about 2 hours of agony waiting, she flied into one of the bamboo cage to eat an insect and I just walk up and close the cage door.
Lesson: Always pay attention to what we are doing around the bird cage/aviary.  Never too confidence that the bird won't try to escape if giving it a chance.  If escape, never chase it.  Just hang other bird of the same specie near its location (to keep it flies away) and also hang or place on the ground couple bamboo cages with its favorite food and water near by.  After couple hours, the bird will be either hungry or thirsty and will fly into the bamboo cage.  I am lucky to have H4N1 back into my aviary! :)

2 comments:

  1. It's amazing how you could do all the things like that without any panic. You are a real expert, my friend.

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  2. I'm no expert in bird keeping but I do learn a lot from friends and from internet/forum. Hehe, actually this is the second time I have bird escape under my care. The first one is another baby and with the guide from my friend DT, I finally caught him after one full day the bird escaped. I also witnessed two of my friends who has shama escaped. Calm is the key and most shama won't fly too far away from his cage unless wild bird like crow chase him away or no big low tree around the house

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