Picture Friday

One of my favorite birds to watch in the zoo are the Rainbow Lorikeets. I call them Loudikeets sometimes because you have to wear ear protection when you go in their indoor enclosure, big noise canceling headphones that are the same ones ground crews wear in airports. They are so loud that when they are in their outdoor enclosure you can hear them 2 building's over. Sometimes they get to screeching and the babboons screech back and then the lemurs start getting in on it and it gets really loud.

The zoo has a bunch of them, at least 8 adults and some new babies so they rotate on and off exhibit. This picture is of one of the bigger lorikeets in the indoor exhibit. There weren't many people at the zoo in the early morning so I sat and watched the keeper hose down the walls and floors. She filled a pan with water and this one, let's call him Flappy, just took a bath in it. I interrupted his preening. They have some tree branches suspended with ropes and he was sitting on one of the branches that moved around pretty freely. It's funny to watch a bird try to clean itself while on a swing and having another bird dive bomb him occasionally. In the background you can make out some shelves. Sometimes they line themselves up on them, two birds to a shelf. Why? I don't know? Maybe one of them has OCD and likes to organize the other's alphabetically in a lil bird library?