Too Cute

[Baccus]

Last year around late November I picked up a starving literally skin and bone baby rainbow lorriket of the side of the road who not only was too weak to fly but also had malformed feathers (I suspect mostly due to bad diet) so couldnt fly even if he had the strength.
We bought the poor little tyke home knowing it would be a long haul to get him well enough to return to the wild.
Fast forward to this current day and Lotto (in Australia Lotto is run by Golden Casket and their logo is a rainbow, and when we found our Lorriket we where on our way to put on lotto), his name has come along in leaps and bounds.
From being a skrawny little fellow who only ate and slept rebuilding his health and reserves, he now plays most of the day and only eats when the need takes him.
But when he plays its all out, he does loop de loops around various perches, hangs upside down from the roof of his cage while rattling and shaking what ever toy he has a hold of with either his beak or foot. As well as running up and down a ladder or just squeezing through the rungs. He also chases a ball meant for a cat with a bell in it around the floor of his cage.
He comes to the front of the cage and if you put your face right up to the bars he very gently and tenderly reaches out to lick your eyebrows or nose. Even when he's threatening to bite because you have dared to touch one of his toys or food bowl he only punches and never bites.
But by far the cutest thing is this, the other day on a whim I got Lotto a bird hammock, and for a while Lotto figured it was only good for chewing the string that hangs it or feeling the texture of the inner fuzzy lining with his tongue. But the other night I finally caught him using the hammock more of less for its intended purpose.

 
Its really funny because he squeezes in so far but feels he has to keep his feet on a perch outside for a quick exit.

 

[Akasha72]

well what can I say ... what a wonderfully kind and thoughtful person you are. So many people would have passed on by kicking the poor thing to the gutter even further.
I've actually got a tear in my eye after reading about Lotto and all you've done to return him to full health. So what happens now? Is he a perminant pet now or do you plan to release him back to the wild?
 
I would find it very hard to let him go for fear of what would happen 

 

[Baccus]

The plan is once there is some good wild food sources around ( we have still had next to no real rain and the wild trees just arent flowering) and we know Lotto can fly strongly he will get released.
But I suspect that even if we open the door of the cage for him to go of his own free will he will stay put. One day I had Lotto inside and thought I would leave his door open and just see if he would come out on his own accord. Nope he spent the entire day roaming about his cage, eating and playing and didnt even consider poking his beak out the open door.
I guess he knows where his bread is buttered

. Every morning he gets nice warm fresh lorikeet formula that he adores, he also has lorriket pellets which hes not fussed on and dried fruit which again he tends to leave alone. A previous rainbow lorikeet I had loved to soften her sultanas in her formula for the day and then mung them up into a pulp that evening.
This is lovely Lotto not asleep.

 

[Akasha72]

he's stunning! He certainly sounds like he's decided to stay with you and I can't blame him after all he's been through! Keep me posted with what happens with Lotto, I'd love to know if he decides to go back to the wild or if he decides to stay with you and be a pet

 

[Baccus]

Lotto is a wild bird (well of wild origins) and native so by law he has to be released. But if he chooses to hang around after release thats his choice

 ​

 

[Akasha72]

ahh I see. I have family in Australia and I know they are pretty keen on protecting the natural flora and fauna and tend to make rules and stick to them. Good luck with him

 

[Baccus]

In Queensland we used to be able to get permeits to keep native birds and animals that couldnt be released for various reasons as pets, but sadly that policy has gone by the wayside and now if it cant be released it must be put to sleep. A lot of needless lives lost in my opinion, when parrots and cockatoos adapt well to loss of flight and can make very loving pets, even some possom species make better house companions than cats. Eastern Grey kangaroos in suburban yards is not really a good idea males can be lethal and they really need a lot more space than a tiny yard allows them, but smaller endangered wallabies, bettongs and even quolls still make good pets.
What I REALLY hate is people overseas are able to keep Australian Native Species as pets such as Sugar Gliders and I am not allowed to even though they are native and endemic to my area. Queensland is missing a great opportunity to have thousands of homes keeping more genetic diversity in species than a few select zoos could ever dream of. And as everyone knows its when numbers get depleted that inbreeding becomes an issue and is the beginning of the loss of a species unless careful genetic management is done.
I'll get off my soap box now, but its something I am passionate about.
 
Oh and Lotto had two friends visiting him this morning trying to get his food, they could even be his parents since he seemed very excited by them while other rainbow lorikeets he pretty much ignores.

 

[Akasha72]

that seems utterly mental. You've done the right thing by picking him up, fixing him up and in the process he's become a little bit humanised ... surely it's better he stays in your care than put to sleep. That's just mental.

 

[Baccus]

Nobody ever said Laws had to make sense to sane people, look at an old USA law that forbade the hanging of mens and womens undergarments on the same clothesline.
For a lot of years to even in our National Parks (last refuges for lots of native plants and animals) the powers that be did not actively control feral pests like pigs and foxes or noxious plants, so what should have been safe havens for natives became reserves for things that really endanger our ecology. Any limited space that man has a hand in needs proper management, not just allowed to run wild with undesirable introduced pests. Because the introduced pests will always out compete the natives that never evolved with that sort of never ending competition from bigger, quicker breeding and often aggressive animals.

 

[Akasha72]

we've got exactly the same problems here in the U.K Baccus and not much is done about it. The Victorian's brought the Himalayan balsalm plant into the country and now it's growing like a weed everywhere. The councils have taken to asking walkers to pull some up as they walk past calling it 'the balsalm bash'. I do my bit when I walk my dog and I try to pull it up before it flowers as that the point at which it seeds itself and more every year. The flower creates a pod that bursts when touched and it showers the seeds for a metre around itself. It's a nightmare. The other one is Japanese knotweed. You need to be licenced to remove that. It's so invasive it can get into house foundations and leave the home owner with a home he can't live in or sell.
 
As to animals. Well the grey squirrel was introduced from America and now our native red squirrel is nearly extinct. It's surviving up in Scotland but only because they've erraticated the grey's up there. I'd love to see the reds back in Yorkshire but without a few air rifles and a steady hand it ain't gonna happen.
We've also lost a lot of our native water voles because the animal rights nutcases let lose the non-native American mink from the fur coat farms and they've fed on the voles to the point of extinction. We've also got big problems in our water ways with American crabs that are killing the native crabs.
 
The list goes on and on and it makes me really cross. I'm an animal lover but if an animal doesn't belong here and is causing trouble for our native species then it's time to catch it and either kill it or ship it back where it came from.
 
The thing that worries me the most though is the bees. It's taken about 10 years for the 'powers that be' to decide that the pesticides that are sprayed on crops are killing our bees. In that time the honey bee has declined to such a dangerous state that we're in serious danger of losing them. But they'll carry on spraying the crops anyway. What they don't seem to realise is money can't be eaten - the old Red Indian proverb was right. Man will bring about the destruction of our own habitat in the search of riches

 

[Baccus]

We have a wide a varying range of pest introduced species, from the seemingly harmless rabbits (released for "sport" hunting), less harmless foxes to poisonious cane toads. Cats and Dogs to deer, water buffalo, pigs, camels, horse, donkies, goats, even rats and mice right down to sparrows, starlings, Indian Myhnas, Black birds and pheasants. And then plants well we have cats claw, asparagus fern, agapanthus, willow, lanatana and prickly pear, water hyacinth.
 
But slowly in some sections people are learning and nature is getting a helpful hand rather than destructive. In one national park the feral horses are managed where a certain number of stallions are castrated and every year they muster the herds to and sell a set number of yearlings. These horses are well sort after and fetch good money which in turn goes back to maintaining the national park and the remaining herds in the park. Ideally you don't want any horses in a national park, but these horses have a history too, and its their history and unique breeding that is being preserved.
 
Other people are learning and showing others that instead of hating and fearing dingos, we should be using them as the top predator in Australia. With dingos on the prowl the very small native marsupials, insects and even reptiles and amphibians all get a chance  of survival. Simply because dingos wont tolerate feral cats in their territory nor foxes. Farmers also get less erosion around creeks and dams because the livestock don't linger in the area for fear of a predator.
 
And after the failure of cane toads much more testing and studying is done before unleashing a new species on the environment, cacto blastus is the main success story, a tiny caterpillar took out acres and acres of prickly pear cactus.
 
Ecology is a delicate thing and once its meddled in, continued meddling is needed. But it needs to be smart meddling.

 

[Akasha72]

I was watching something on tv recently about a type of insect that's being trailed here in the U.K as it's known to kill Japanese knotweed. They're checking thankfully though that it won't affect any our other native species - either flora or fauna - before letting it loose. As you say smart meddling at last

 

[Baccus]

Just had to share another picture of Lotto in his little hammock

 

[Akasha72]

aww he's cute. He seems to like it anyway

 

[Baccus]

He also likes to sort of preen the fuzzy lining of the hammock, and he certainly has taken to it like a duck to water. It will be good for him in winter if I still have him then, it will help him stay warm since he doesnt have a mate to snuggle up to.