Welcome / Meet OT

Hi! I already wrote most of my first post but I am still learning how to use this and I accidentally deleted it, so sorry if what I am about to write sounds rushed. My name is Emily, and I am currently finishing my first year in the MA program in Conservation Biology at Columbia University. If you had told me in high school that I would end up going to graduate school in the sciences, I never would have believed you. I was a theater nerd throughout high school, and I had dreams of going to a musical theater program and performing on Broadway. However, the summer after my junior year I volunteered at the camp at the Staten Island zoo, and everything changed. As I watched the counselors bring out various animals and tell the campers all about them, and even let them touch some of them, I realized that I wanted to be able to get kids excited about nature by letting them come into contact with animals. I signed up for the next course to become a docent at the zoo, which is basically a volunteer who is trained to handle animals and interpret them for the public.

One of my first tasks in the docent course was to choose two animals in the education department to get trained on handling. I chose Charlie, our 8-foot red-tailed boa constrictor, and Buddy, our male jandaya conure. Both of these animals really influenced me, and I still have trouble choosing between reptiles and birds. But it was Buddy that really made me realize that I wanted to work with animals. Anyone who has ever interacted with a parrot can tell you that they can be picky. Buddy was no exception, and in my first few times working with him I often ended up with bloody fingers from his sharp beak. If Charlie had bitten me I probably would have abandoned my hopes of working with him, but I was determined to get this tiny, spunky parrot to like me. I visited him in his cage in the animal hospital every chance I got, and I eventually decided to try singing to him. That was the first break through, and as I sang Buddy danced on his perch. Eventually he trusted me enough to step up onto my finger, and eventually even enough to let me scratch his head. Whenever I took him out onto the zoo floor to introduce him to the guests he would climb up on my shoulder and preen my hair. When the tropical rainforest wing got quiet, I hummed to him quietly and he danced on my shoulder, leaning as far down as he could to look at my face. Sometimes I thought I would go deaf from his loud vocalizations, but it was completely worth it. I went back to the zoo last summer to teach zoo camp after being away throughout college, and it took almost no time at all to get Buddy to climb back up on my shoulder.

Since then, I've worked with a lot of parrots, and each experience has taught me something different. I still love snakes as well, but there is something about parrots that just makes me feel comfortable, despite their huge beaks. My master's thesis is focusing on analyzing fairy bluebird vocalizations, and I'm sure I'll discuss that at some point in this blog, but for now I want to focus on the reason I'm creating this blog. I am currently an intern in the Ornithology Department at the Bronx Zoo, which is where I will be doing my thesis research over the summer. However, part of my job is to assist the keepers in the World of Birds exhibit, and I have met some incredible birds there. I want to start this blog off with a bang, so let me introduce you to my favorite parrot at the zoo!

This is OT, a palm cockatoo. His name is OT because apparently when he was being raised a lot of zookeepers were paid for overtime. :) As you can see, like other cockatoos he has a crest on his head that goes up when he gets excited. His cheeks also flush bright red. In the picture above, he is extremely excited because he found the walnut I hid in a tube inside a cereal box for his enrichment.

We give our parrots enrichment every day, usually in the form of hiding their favorite seeds inside something they need to tear apart or figure out. As you can see, OT's beak is huge, so he can rip apart pretty much anything we can give him. He loves walnuts, and it's incredible to see how carefully he uses that scary beak. He cracks the walnut open and extracts the edible parts with his long, black-tipped tongue. It's really incredible to watch.

As cool as he is, at first glance OT is a pretty intimidating bird. He stands almost two feet tall, and that beak is about 6 inches long and could easily crush your hand if he wanted to. I went inside his exhibit one of my first weeks on the job, and watched jealously as the keeper played with him and he climbed on her arm and let her scratch his head. I thought it would take weeks, if not months, of getting to know him before I could actually handle him, just like it did with Buddy.

A week or two later, I was walking to the locker room and I noticed one of the keepers playing with OT just outside his exhibit. I sat next to her to watch, and within a few minutes OT had climbed over towards me and climbed up on my shoulder. It made me SO HAPPY. I had never thought I would be able to work with such an impressive looking bird so quickly, let alone that the bird himself would make the first move towards establishing a relationship. From that point, I was able to go into his exhibit and work with him. It can still be intimidating, especially when his beak gets close to you. It's especially unnerving when OT gets really excited. He hangs out with keepers on the ground, and if you've interacted with him enough and given him enough treats the extended crest and flushed cheeks apparently aren't enough for him to express his excitement. Before you know it, he crouches down with his wings extended, makes a whistling noise, and starts running around the exhibit. He particularly likes running up to crouching keepers and interns and putting his head between their knees, which is certainly not where you want a beak like that to go. You eventually learn to take it as a compliment, but it still makes my heart race when I'm not expecting it.

I have been working with OT for several months now, and I am pretty much in love with him. I met my friend Cori at the zoo on Sunday to give her a tour of the building where I work, and as soon as I passed OT's exhibit and said hi to him he got excited and moved as close to the glass as he could. He is without a doubt one of the most incredible birds I have ever worked with. Of course, there are lots of other beautiful and funny birds at the zoo, but they will have to wait for another post before I introduce them. I hope you like my new blog!