Macaws
Mating and Nesting Baby Macaws!
Macaws... are almost
always paired male and female, they're monogamous for life... often
sitting side by side, grooming and preening each other, and
conversing in
rasping, loving tones,
or flying two by two.
Since males and females
look alike, gender can only be
distinguished during breeding and nesting.
They usually
mate in December, and the
female lays two eggs. While
she incubates the eggs.... for four
weeks, her partner,
brings
her food he has swallowed and stored in a throat
pouch. He regurgitates
it, into her mouth, just as both
parents... will do
later for their young.
If the eggs.... are
not chilled by rainwater or eaten
by
long-beaked Toucans, they hatch in
January, one to five
days apart.
The oldest nestling... enjoys the
major competitive
advantage
of being fed first at every meal.
Its sibling,
seldom survives. Usually the
parents push a dead chick,
out of the nest.
When a baby
Macaw, is ready to fledge, at
three to
four months, it is as large, as its
parents, but it
still
has a lot to learn. Mostly,
it's head appears to be
the biggest part of it's body!
Maneuvering its body... out of
the nest hole, is the first challenge, if the hole is quite
narrow. Sometimes the
parents cut back the nestling's rations to force
it to
make
the effort.
Young Macaws... usually leave
their parents and start
looking
for a mate, at age two or
three. Finding a
place
to lay
eggs, is a far more difficult
matter.
Macaws usually nest... in softwood trees, such as
Jallinazos, where termites have hollowed out holes.
April through July,
you might see small groups of Macaws.... clambering about
the upper trunks of
dead
trees... at Corcovado, squabbling
over holes and crevices.
In Carara, nesting season begins
in September.
A contributing factor
in the Macaws' low reproduction rate,
is an acute housing shortage.
The nest sites, have
to be
deep, clean, and dry enough, for the large Macaws.
Macaws... play and interact
with each other in ways
that
most other birds do not. A pair
of mated adults,
will preen
each other and their
offspring for hours,
removing lice and
ticks and naturally dispersing body
oil... on one another's feathers.
They do not usually
socialize... with Macaws,
outside
their family, but they talk to each
other constantly.
In a trio or
quartet of Macaws, the young can be
identified, by their
eye color. Their irises are dark, becoming
yellowish, with
age.
Their youth... can be a giveaway too. Even when they can
fend for themselves, they often pretend
to
be babies.
Macaws in captivity... live for 50, 60, occasionally 70 years.
In addition, to being intelligent and verbal, parrots can be remarkably destructive. (Think of
3-year-olds, with power tools.)
For the larger parrots, only Ironwood and Manzanita,
are
really tough
enough to use as perches, if kept
in
captivity.
Other hardwoods and softwoods are used as chew
toys, to
be shredded into toothpicks.
In Captivity... Parrots are
flock animals and tend to
pair
bond, with their owner / caregiver. Parrots are
one of the
few animals, kept as pets, that are prey
animals, as
opposed
to predators. They tend
to be
suspicious of
anything new,
introduced into their
environment.
In the wild, large
macaws that survive their first year.
have
few natural predators and probably die between
the
ages of 30 and 45, from a
combination of eagle
attacks,
parasites, disease, and old age.
Few birds... live so long or learn
so much, throughout
their lives.
Years after the scientists, have long
retired
from the rainforests, the birds they
have studied, will still
be flying,
protected and free.
Macaws in Costa Rica 2
Feeding Macaws! Exotic Seeds, Diet, Clay
Licks
Back to Costa Rica Bird Directory
Stray Reality Home
