Touch an owl's doughnut, tickle her feet, make her uhoo at maximum capacity, and chase frogs around the flat - these are all things any true crazy zoologist must do when they're at my place.
Yesterday there were two videos, but I will answer the question from the first one about Silva. Don't forget to ask your questions again if they didn't get enough likes under previous videos. Sooner or later every question will be answered.
"Богдан Чуб
17 hours ago (edited)
What are the strangest habits of your birds you can recall? Is there a "top 3 (5/10)" list?"
Since I began my "career" in ornithology with corvids, I can recall many behaviours of crows. But they are very intelligent birds. They constantly learn and come up with ideas, so it wasn't strange, but rather surprising and "oh god, not again, stop!".
A raven named Hallgrim used to steal socks and cotton gloves for plugging the chimney with them, when I let him out to fly around in the countryside.
A magpie named Spoon learned to switch off the bathroom light to get the person in the bathroom to open the door for turning it back on. The magpie would then fly in and snatch their toothbrush.
A female goshawk named Alarme used to yell like a siren when she disliked something. And in the first couple of weeks of us getting to know each other, she disliked EVERYTHING. Some people nearly called the police one time, thinking we were torturing a child or a pig... I've never met another goshawk so emotional, as they weren't meaningless cries due to imprinting, like in the case of Boomerang the kite. They were cries expressing emotions and extreme resentment, as in "get your dirty hands off me!", "put me back where you took me!", "just give me some food and get lost!".
A boreal owl named Meatball had the "endless hunger syndrome", as I used to call it. He stored food, think that tomorrow there will be a time of starvation, and he will have to survive. At the time there were three boreal owls (Chuchundriy, Meatball and Doughnut) and two little owls (Gnus and Yuinya) living in the room freely. I used to bring a plate with five portions of food for everyone. I usually just handed out the portion to each owl, and they were then free to do what they want with their food. But once Meatball got recovered after treatment, he started meeting me at the door. He'd pounce right on the plate, grab his portion and hide it quickly. When I'd hand out another portion to another owl, he'd pounce on my hand, steal the food and hide it again. This would happen to four of the portions. Then he would settle down and eat the fifth one without hiding it. The other owls quickly figured out what was happening and simply started taking their food from Meatball's stashes.
After getting treatment, Meatball and Doughnut went to a nursery.
Silva the goshawk likes to give me a smack on the back of my head, if I take too long (in her opinion) to call her to land on my arm for giving her a tasty treat. If we spend a long time walking, and she gets tired of flying, she smacks me the same way for making me turn back home.
Every bird has its quirks. They all have different personalities and tempers, and they all have their own tricks up their wings.