Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.
When you're caring for 75 birds representing 37 different species, there's almost daily some exciting avian news to share. That's the case for the North Florida Wildlife Center, which started up in Lamont, Fla., five years ago with just a few birds as its first residents. The nonprofit's animal population now also includes vulnerable mammals, amphibians and reptiles who, along with all the birds, are the living expression of the center's mission of “wildlife conservation through public educational outreach, propagation of rare and endangered species and habitat restoration efforts.”
The avian component at the Wildlife Center continues to grow, not only when fascinating new birds arrive from other zoological institutions, but also when birds already in residence are able to reproduce on site. Not long ago, a pair of blue-bellied rollers successfully hatched a chick that has now fledged the nest.
More recently, the saddle-billed stork couple built a massive stick nest and are now tending three eggs.
“The laying of a third egg is huge news,” says Executive Director Ryan Reines, noting that this stork species is near threatened with numbers declining. “Every egg laid is a meaningful and hopeful step towards the future of these incredible birds. It's an amazing accomplishment for conservation, and it is happening right here.”
One rather unusual development is the adoption of a baby sarus crane by a local chicken. That's right, Reines and his staff worked with a volunteer/neighbor/supporter, Jessica Pickholtz, to carefully select one of her hens who might care for a baby crane that needed a feathery mom in a safe place. The timing was right for Luna, one of Pickhotz's hens who was acting very broody just when the little crane needed to be matched with a motherly bird.
“We knew we would have success rearing it with a hen,” Reines adds. “We don't want it to imprint on humans for behavioral reasons, for breeding reasons.”
The adoption process involved first giving Luna some artificial eggs. Then, after she sat on them for a few days, they introduced the chick, as if it had hatched from one of the chicken-sized eggs. The plan worked!
“Since then, it has remained a total 'mama's boy,'” reports Reines of the crane chick, “and Luna has remained an amazing mom, even though her offspring is more than three times her own height. It's pretty comical.”
The best news is that the chick knows it is a bird and does not approach humans when they enter the enclosure. The hen and baby crane sleep together each night in their hutch, and with Sandy (the unreleasable sandhill crane) living next door, the chick gets to see another crane every day as well.
Even though sandhill and sarus cranes have similar coloring and features, mature sarus cranes are much larger than sandhills. Sarus cranes are in fact the tallest flying birds on the planet; males can reach close to six feet! Indeed, the not-so-little sarus chick at the Wildlife Center is already nearly as tall as full-grown Sandy.
“He is growing like a weed,” comments Reines. “He eats a variety of foods: insects, beetle larvae, greens, a special crane mix, a bit of chicken feed because mama is a chicken, some veggies and a little bit of protein pellets.”
While young, the sarus crane will stay with mama Luna next door to Sandy. In the future, Reines intends to have it in one of the center's relatively new wetland habitats designed for large wading species.
In other bird news at the Wildlife Center, portions of the towering aviary complex under construction have been completed. This area, named Tropical Treasures, will be home for many of the center's birds. This week, the first residents are moving in, including black-casqued hornbills, wreathed hornbills, red-billed blue magpies, azure-winged magpies, purple glossy starlings, a Vietnamese pheasant, a red-billed hornbill, a helmeted curassow, a collared aracari and an emerald toucanet. What a colorful crew! When completed, visitors will be able to walk into the middle and be surrounded by fascinating birds flying around in aviaries that reach from the ground up into the treetops.
The North Florida Wildlife Center is located at 1386 Cook Rd. in Lamont, Fla. For more information, call 850-347-0921, email info@northfloridawildlife.org or visit www.northfloridawildlife.org.