stepped forward into a spot of sunlight and the rufous on her wings glowed Krishs Aviary brilliantly. She stood and watched me, 17971 Sun Knoll Drive head cocked first on one side, then on the other,"wheeping" every few seconds. She raised and lowered her elegantly curled black and white crest constantly. Slowly she began walking toward me, stopping , , , every couple of steps to peer at me and "wheep". Further crashes from above in­ • Zebras • Societies dicated the presence ofher mate. He was • Gouldians not so curious, though he finally descend­ • Rares ed to the ground also, but kept his l.0VEBlItDS • Peachface & Mutations Editor's Note: distance. The female stopped about • Fishers Being the daughter of a noted twenty feet in front of me. When she • Blue Masks SHIPPED ANYWHERE • Black Masks IN THE UNITED STATES naturalist and wildltfe tour guide, Diane made no further move in my direction, I From L.A. International Weyer has literally grown up with the slowly stepped toward her. She let me ad­ GUAItA~TEED Q.UAUTY wildltfe ofBelize, Central Amenca. She vance five or six feet before, neck craned BUDGIES CANARIES is a free-lance wn'ter drawing upon a and crest jerking wildly, she gave a last INDIAN RINGNECKS wealth ofexpen'ence with wildltfe in the "wheep" and fled with great awkward GOLDEN MANTLE ROSELLAS field andshe also teaches jungle survival Visitors Welcome flapping bounds back to her mate. They By Prior Appointment Only to Bn'tish army commandos. both peered at me from a variety of Field EditorJack Clinton-Eitniear angles,"wheeping" to each other, before THE A VICULTURAL launching themselves, with much crashing, back up into the trees. SOCIETY I was delighted. Great in­ (founded 1894) habit lowland jungles from southern has an international membership, to Columbia and and who receive and contribute to the that they are hunted throughout their range. 'The Avicu/tural Magazine', the Here in they are a prized game bird. oldest and most revered journal It is a rare privilege to see ones as curious devoted to the study ofwild sounds like and unafraid as these were. Some in captivity. • mahogany was taken out of the upper The Hon Secretary Bladen drainage about thirty years ago. The A vicu/tural Society aJaguar Since then, so far as I knew, only two Windsor Forest Stud groups ofpeople had entered it; one was a Mill Ride by Diane Weyer geological survey team, and the other was ASCOT Belize, myself and two friends, nearly six years Berkshire previously. This time I had been asked to SL58LT Occasional splashes of sunlight reach­ teach a group of the Third Queen's Regi­ England ed the jungle floor. The water muttered to ment about jungle survival and what lives Subscription for 1982-$20,00 itselfjustoutofsight on my left, along the out there. Four days earlier we had been Sample magazine sent on request, upper reaches of Bladen Branch. I was dropped in by helicopter a couple ofmiles scrambling along a steep, jungle covered downstream. You don't see much in the hill looking for possible cave openings way of wildlife with five other people when I heard a loud crash in the trees crashing through the bush with you but ahead. More crashes followed. They ap­ that afternoon I was alone, the soldiers peared to be coming from about sixty to being occupied trying to get radio com­ seventy feet up in a tree at the edge ofthe munications. I had left them in a sea of river. I guessed monkeys or birds, either radio aerials and saw the curassows less COLOR curassows or guans. Had I been on the than an hour later. My curious birds north side of the Maya Mountains, seemed. proof that no one had shot MONTHLY ocellated turkeys would also have been a curassows in this valley for a very long FINCH possibility but not in the Bladen drainage. time. MAGAZINE I couldn't see whatever was moving Peculiarly, curassows take their around so continued on until I was op­ English name from the island ofCuracao specializing in ASIAN posite the noises, then came down offthe in the Dutch West Indies, despite the fact AUSTRALIAN hillside andwaited. Anothercrash sound­ that curassows have never been found & AFRICAN FINCHES ed lower down. there. Throughout most of their range SEND TO: FINCH NEWS I peered through the vegetation, they are known by their Spanish name, 28 WARRUGA ST., THE GAP unaware that I was already being watched 4061 OLD, AUSTRALIA Pavo del Monte. Curassows are members myself. A rather hesitant "wheep wheep" of the family . The cracids are, SUBSCRIPTION: $25,00 made me look down. A female great cur­ with the possible exception of the Hoat­ WITH AIR MAil: $33,00 assow (Crox rubra) stood about forty feet zin, the most primitive family of OR SEND FOR SAMPLE MAGAZINE away from me, her plummage blending gallinaceous birds. They and the Noatzin superbly with the leaf litter. Then she are the only arboreal . 18 The great is the largest of all the cracids, weighing over ten pounds and measuring three feet in length. Their body shape is reminiscent of a wild Here are turkey. Like other cracids, but unlike most fowl, the hindtoe is well developed four good reasons and level with, instead ofelevated above, the three foretoes. This unusual confor­ to mation allows them to grip and walk join the along branches with ease. The male is solid black with a pure white abdomen AviculturalBook Club™ and undertail coverts and a brilliant P.O. Box 108 Ozone Park, New York 11417 yellow knob and cere. The female is a rich rufous color with fine black barring on 1. BARGAINS-Big discounts off publishers' prices, premium the head and neck and wider barring on books and other special discounts and offers for club the tail. Both male and female have large, members. expressive, curled crests. The male's crest 2. SELECTION-Expertly-selected books for every avicultural is black but the female's has a white band interest and level of knowledge-from books for young readers through it. Male great curassows have a long, to veterinary textbooks-from Arco, Blandford Press, British modified trachea which allows them con­ Museum, Cornell University Press, Crown, David & Charles, siderable variety and resonance in their Howell, Lea & Febiger, Saiga, Sterling and many other calls. Like the females, males give soft publishers. hoots and mutterings at frequent inter­ 3. INFORMATION-Three to four, completely revised and vals, apparentlyto stayin touch with their illustrated catalogs per year, describing books in detail­ mates, and "wheep" when alarmed. But the male is best known for his "booming" contents, reviewers' opinions, physical dimensions, etc. call which is generally associated with 4. MINIMAL OBLIGATIONS-To join the Avicultural Book courtship. When "booming", the bird Club" you simply pledge to purchase at least one book (your hunches forward and lowers his head. choice) from every catalog, i.e., three to four books per year. The "boom" is not particularly loud but has a ventriloquial quality about it and is For dozens of other good reasons, send for the latest Avicultural frequently mistaken for ajaguar grunting in the distance. Book Club" catalog today! The catalog is free and there is no Once a female has been duly courted by obligation to join. displays of "booming" and strutting, the male builds, or helps build, the nest. This tends to be a surprisingly small and poor­ Yes! Please send me your next Avicultural Book Club" ly constructed platform of green leaves catalog and complete membership details. and twigs placed not far above the ground. There the female lays two very My main avian interests include: (please check all large white eggs and incubates them for applicable boxes) 29 to 34 days. The chicks are active and Dparrots, large hookbills Dlories Dlovebirds can climb branches immediately. After Dcockatiels Dbudgerigars Dfinches Ocanaries ... the first couple ofdays, they roost high in Dsoftbills Dpigeons and doves ... Dgamebirds, waterfowl the trees where the female broods a chick ." Dbirds as pets ... Dnative birds ... Dother: under each wing. Dr. Stephen M. Russell ______(please specify). reports that females may give a loud, -like snarl when defending their young. Unlike most gallinaceous birds, Name . _ curassow chicks need to be fed by their (please print clearly) parents until they learn to eat by Street _ themselves. Although great curassows spend much City _ of their time in trees, they feed primarily on the ground, preferring to pick up State Zip _ fallen fruit rather than pluck it while still on the tree. They are fruit eaters, and will often eat very green fruit, but they will mail to: not hesitate to catch any large insects, Avicultural Book Club® curassows have been known to take P.O. Box 108 lizards and even small . Curacids Ozone Park, New York 11417 are some of the few birds known to con­ sume mineral clays, rather in the manner of at salt licks. Numerous attempts have been made to 19 olia

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No. AW-18 domesticate curassows and the other ing them impractical. Dr. Jesus Estudillo Diameter 11" Bag Depth 16" cracids from the time of the first Euro­ Lopez ofMexico Cityis oneofthe world's Handle 18" pean settlements in the New World, but leading authorities on the raising of No. AW-12 without success. They arehardybirds and cracids. 8" quickly become tame. They are, how­ A year almost to the day after my 11" ever, very sensitive to cold and their feet sighting of the curassows on Bladen 12" are especially prone to frostbite, making Branch, I was pleased to see several dur­ heated quarters necessary in cold ing the course of three days spent in the climates. Even in warm climates, there Chiquebul area of Belize. The Chiquebul are drawbacks in keeping large numbers forest used to be one of the most inac­ of curassows. Being arboreal, they re­ cessible areas ofBelize. Six months ago, a quire large pens with plenty of branches friend and I hiked fifty-two miles through Ou r nets featu re 100% to perch on and places to nest above it, thirty-one ona new logging roadin cur­ nylon nett,ing, hardwood ground. Further, while they get on well rent use, (though we saw only one vehicle handles, and spring steel hoops. with domestic fowl, they are inclined to during that time). We sighted curassows fight viciously when several curassows four times as well as ocellated turkeys 2042 ATLANTIDA DR. HACIENDA HEIGHTS, CA 91745 are confined together. They do well in three times and innumerable zoos, but their monogamous nature, chachalacas, smaller members of the (213) 330-8700 small clutch size, and disinclination to Crac;dae. But we also saw a number of breed in captivity have made domesticat- shotgun shells along the track and all of 20 the birds were wary, flying immediately. throughout their range. Neither curas­ Belize is the least populated country in sows nor their natural predators can sur­ Central America and, as such, one ofthe vive in the face of increasing human main reservoirs of wildlife left. But even populations except in protected areas rae e though the Maya Mountains are un­ which are few and far between in Central touched by four-lane highways, are in America. Belize has recently enacted fact uncrossed even by mule trail over legislation to allow the formation of Bird arm most of their length, logging and slash­ wildlife reserves and national parks, and-burn agriculture are encroaching several of which are under current study. Finches steadily. With luck and a lot of money and hard Cockatiels Though curassows have many natural work, there will be room for great Lovebirds predators, including eagle-hawks and the curassows to live in the wild for a long larger cats, man is their chief nemesis time yet here in Belize.• Parrots Quails Doves

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