Ancient parrot in New Zealand was 1m tall, study says

A giant parrot that roamed New Zealand about 19 million years ago had a height of 1m (3ft 2in) - roughly half the average height of a human, a new study has found.

The remains of the parrot were found near St Bathans in New Zealand's southern Otago region.

Given its size, the parrot is believed to have been flightless and carnivorous, unlike most birds today.

A study of the bird was published on Tuesday in the journal Biology Letters.

Weighing just over one stone (7kg), the bird would have been two times heavier than the kākāpo, previously the largest known parrot.

"There are no other giant parrots in the world," Professor Trevor Worthy, a palaeontologist at Flinders University in Australia and lead author of the study, told the BBC. "Finding one is very significant."

Palaeontologists have dubbed the new species Heracles inexpectatus in recognition of its unusual size and strength.

The bones - initially believed to belong to an eagle or duck - were kept in storage for 11 years until earlier this year, when a team of palaeontologists reanalysed them.

Prof Worthy said one of his students came across the parrot's bones by chance in his laboratory during a research project.

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Clever Parrot Keeps Ordering Stuff From Owner’s Amazon Alexa

Rob Fox, December 17, 2018 9:56 pm

When the machines rise, will they ally with the birds to defeat us? This would likely be a mistake on the part of the birds, as the machines will almost certainly eventually turn on them, or any other biological being that aligns itself with the mechanical armies, but also we eat a whole lot of birds, so who could blame them? How do you convince someone whose family members you keep eating that you’re not the bad guy? You don’t.

As it turns out, birds and machines have already begun to foster their relationship, if I’m reading this story about a pet parrot and an Amazon Alexa becoming friends. (I am.)

According to Rocco the African grey parrot’s owner, Marion Wischnewski of the National Animal Welfare Trust Sanctuary, the bird has fallen in love with its owner’s Amazon Alexa. The naughty parrot has the Alexa play romantic music and asks the virtual assistant to order it only the most erotic of foods, like strawberries and ice cream and broccoli. Don’t act like that shopping list isn’t getting you hot. And don’t you dare judge Alexa and Rocco’s love.

The sneaky parrot is, like most parrots, can mimic human words, and repeats what it hears to Alexa, especially when its owner is gone, apparently. The Amazon Alexa will then order items based on the parrot asks for. Or, you know, play music. Sometimes the parrot just wants to chill. This is all hilarious now, but one day that parrot is going to squawk “Diamond Ring” and max the hell out of Wischnewski’s credit card and Amazon account. This parrot is going to get more for Christmas than its owner. And on its owner’s dime.

Readon 

Watch a parrot wearing goggles fly through a laser sheet

By Rachael LallensackDec. 5, 2016 , 7:15 PM

Thanks to a tiny goggle-wearing parrot named after Obi-Wan Kenobi, scientists have shown just how much we still don’t know about animal flight. The researchers set out to illustrate a problem that’s been warned of in their field of study, but never tested: The three most popular methods used to calculate lift, or how much force winged animals use to keep their bodies soaring, are frequently inconsistent and inaccurate. To do so, they spent months training Obi to fly from perch to perch through a flattened vertical laser projected through a cylindrical lens. Sound dangerous? Don’t worry; Obi had his own custommade pair of 3D-printed goggles as safety glasses, and the lasers themselves were harmless. Why lasers? Because the team needed a way to three-dimensionally observe the vortices—think miniature air tornadoes—birds create when they flap their wings. A total of 12 high-speed cameras surrounded the 1-meter-long flight path to capture Obi’s speed, wake flow, and path of the vortices. 

The scientists’ most surprising finding, published online today in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, was that the vortices chaotically break down in the blink of an eye—literally, both take about 100 milliseconds. What they saw on video did not match what the three equations calculated. Two equations consistently underestimated the lift values. The other kept producing a zero value, which would imply free fall, at times when the footage clearly showed the bird still flapping through the air. The findings could help researchers develop better flying robots. In the meantime, Obi deserves a thank you—or perhaps an extra serving of his favorite treat: fresh broccoli. 

Source and watch video

Parrot fossil unearthed in Siberia

By Rebecca Morelle Science Correspondent, BBC News

26 October 2016

A parrot fossil has been unearthed in Siberia - the furthest north one of these birds has ever been found, a study reports.

A single parrot bone was discovered in the Baikal region and dates to between 16 and 18 million years ago.

It suggests that the birds, which today mainly inhabit tropical and sub-tropical regions, may once have been widespread in Eurasia.

It is also the first time a fossil parrot has been found in Asia.

The research is published in the journal Biology Letters.

The study's author Dr Nikita Zelenkov, from the Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, said he was surprised by the discovery.

"No-one before has ever found evidence of their presence in Siberia," he said. Image copyright Alexander Sizov Image caption The parrot bones were unearthed from a site in the east of Siberia

The researchers discovered the ancient parrot's remains at Tagay Bay in the east of Siberia.

It was likely a very modern-looking small bird, around the size of budgerigar. "We were excavating all kinds of animals there, and mostly they were rodents, rhinos, cats, hippos and others," said Dr Zelenkov.

"But this locality is also interesting because it preserves a rich community of fossil birds. But no exotic birds have been found there before."

Dr Zelenkov discovered part of a bone called a tarsometatarsus, which is found in the lower leg of birds. After comparing it with other species, he discovered that it belonged to a small parrot.

"Unfortunately, this find is not good enough to reconstruct the appearance or lifestyle of this parrot, but we can see that it was rather similar to modern ones. So it was likely a very modern-looking small bird, around the size of a budgerigar."

It shares features with another earlier fossil parrot bone in Germany, reported in a study published in 2010, belonging to a species called Mogontiacopsitta miocaena.

 

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Mean OAP Pulled Out Parrots Tail Feathers

A pensioner in Germany is facing a 900 GBP fine for animal cruelty after pulling out the tail feathers of a parrot.

The bird's owner Elvis Bolanca, 27, had told the woman that she could not have the bird after he had earlier advertised to try to find it a new home.

Elvis, who was moving flats, could not care for the parrot any more. So he had posted an advert on the internet seeking a new home for the pet.

He said: "A 70-year-old woman in the western city of Duesseldorf answered and offered to take him. I didn't want to simply hand him over there without checking and so I agreed to deliver him to her in person.

"When I got there I was shocked that the condition she was living in, there were cigarettes ends everywhere and the TV was on far too loud for a pet. She had five other birds in a tiny cage and the cat that she had also looked in a miserable condition. I couldn't do anything about them but there was no way I was leaving Nerfi with her."

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Parrot on the loose in Egerton

5:01pm Wednesday 30th April 2014 in News

A parrot has been spotted in a garden in Egerton.

The bird was seen by Yvonne Sutcliffe in the back garden of her house in Water Street.

She said: “I am used to seeing lots of birds coming to eat from the feeder in my garden, but I have never seen a parrot before, it flew off after I spotted it.”

She described the bird as having a deep red coloured upper body and a turquoise blue lower section.

She added: “I think it is a shame if someone has lost it.”

If anyone has any information about a missing bird please contact The Bolton News on 01204 537243.

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/11183375.Parrot_on_the_loose_in_Egerton/

Parrot rats on killer, murder solved

Thursday, 27 February 2014 - 6:00am IST | Place: Lucknow | Agency: DNA
Deepak Gidwani

Singing like a bird took on a different meaning and turned two killers into jailbirds when a pet talking-parrot in Agra helped the police "identify" a murderer. The bird proved worthy of its name, Heera (diamond), and the UP Police commended it, saying the parrot helped them crack the murder case.

Neelam Sharma, wife of Vijay Sharma, editor of a local Hindi newspaper, was found murdered at her home in Balkeshwar locality of Agra on February 20. She was alone at home as Vijay and their children had gone for a wedding to neighbouring Firozabad. Vijay returned to find his wife and their pet dog Tuffy stabbed to death while cash, jewellery and other valuables were missing from the house. The police investigations ran into a blind alley as there were no suspects or evidence to nail the killers.

Initially, a milk-seller who had mediated a land deal between Vijay and a buyer was interrogated, but it provided no clue about the crime. The family members, however, got suspicious after noticing a change in the behaviour of their pet parrot. "Heera sulked whenever Ashutosh (Vijay's nephew) came home or passed by its cage," said Vijay's brother Ajay Sharma. "The parrot would also start behaving strangely whenever somebody took Ashutosh's name," he added.

Read on

El Oro Parakeet—One Of World's Rarest Parrots—To Benefit From Conservation Land Purchase In Ecuador

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

The outlook for at least 15 globally endangered bird species—including the rare El Oro Parakeet—has just gotten brighter, thanks to a land deal engineered by Ecuador’s Fundación Jocotoco, Rainforest Trust, and American Bird Conservancy. The deal expands Ecuador’s renowned Buenaventura Reserve by 600 acres, to a total of 4,600 acres.

The rare birds expected to benefit include many of the world’s last 800 El Oro Parakeets and all of the remaining Ecuadorian (El Oro) Tapaculo, which numbers as few as several dozen individuals.

“The protected forests in this reserve are surrounded by cattle pastures and fragmented woodlands,” said Benjamin Skolnik, who leads ABC projects in Ecuador. “That makes preserving and expanding it vital to the birds it protects.”

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Parrot owner gets payout after RAF plane noise kills his bird

Noisy affair! A parrot owner in the UK has been given 2,200 pounds in compensation after his exotic bird was killed by the noise from a low-flying Air Force plane. 

The pet bird was terrified by the noise when the Hercules transport aircraft roared over its owner's house. 

Its death in Ayrshire followed a similar incident where a low-flying plane caused a parrot to fall off its perch and break both its legs. Military chiefs agreed to cover vet bills - including two splints. 

Both cases were among 200 separate claims for damage caused by low-flying military aircraft in the past three years. They left the Ministry of Defence with a 1.4 million pounds compensation bill, the Daily Mirror reported. 

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "The MoD will authorise payment of reasonable ex-gratia compensation where a link can be established between MoD military low-flying activity and any subsequent loss or injury sustained by a claimant". 

"We are very aware of the risks of military flying and the safety of those on the ground, as well as our air crew, is one of our highest priorities," the spokesman said. 

Other settlements included 300 pounds to two therapy groups disturbed by fighter planes overhead and 900 pounds for damage to a child's trampoline in Lancashire. 

Continued: http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/parrot-owner-gets-payout-after-raf-plane-noise-kills-his-bird-113060300455_1.html