Aviary Adventures

Exciting news — a pair of green aracari chicks hatched in late December, and we recently filmed them feeding from the adults!

• MCZ hasn’t had green aracari chicks since 2008.
• This is an altricial species, meaning the chicks are born underdeveloped and require significant care from their parents to mature. They hatch inside the nest box and stay out of view until they fledge after about 5-6 weeks. MCZ’s chicks fledged Feb. 4, which means they hatched sometime between Dec. 24 and 31.
• These birds are also sexually dimorphic: Females generally have a browner head and males have a black head. From the video, MCZ appears to have one male and one female.
• Near the end of the video, you’ll see both chicks near the nest box, with an adult off to the side with food in their mouth. (The female chick is closest to the nest box.)
• Note that the chicks have shorter beaks, which are more dull in color.

Learn what goes into meal planning for the variety of species that call the Free Flight area “home.”

The animal care team are pros at keeping feeding time running smoothly for our rockhopper and gentoo penguin flocks!

Zookeepers enter the habitat with a pre-weighed bucket of fish and a clipboard with a feed log printed on it, with each penguin having a space.

The zookeeper counts how many fish each bird receives. They try to feed one at a time, and many birds will come to the bucket multiple times.

They generally participate calmly but occasionally may get a bit “rowdy” if they’re extra hungry that day. The zookeepers avoid encouraging behavior like biting, slapping, pushing, or shoving, by not feeding the birds who are doing these things until they stop those behaviors.

Naturally, there’s some jostling around, and there’s definitely a hierarchy in the flocks — the dominant birds usually get to eat first and then the others come up). You have to have a good memory and patience to feed the penguins, which all of our zookeepers have!

When everyone is done eating, the zookeeper weighs the bucket again so that they know how much the flocks ate as a total group, as well as what each individual penguin ate. The group total is important, because the animal care team needs to know how much fish to thaw for the next few days and uses that as a guide. Keeping track of what each penguin eats helps us monitor their health and their appetite.