Quest for the Blue Breasted Cordon Bleu.
Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 7:55 am
Under another post of mine (about my $50 aviary) I mentioned going to a game farm close to Botswana to witness the Blue Breasted Cordon Bleu in its natural environment.
There is good news and bad. The good news is, I saw them! The bad news I could not get close enough to one to get a pic. Anyone who owns Cordons Know that they LOVE flying at as high speed as possible and in the wild this is more true.
I did do some extensive research on their natural environment (not anything scientific of course) and learned a couple of valuable things.
For those of you who don't know, there are 3 sub-species of CB one of which is found in South Africa where I live namely the BBCB.
There is a whole geographic distribution on the FIC, but here are a couple of things I've experienced first hand.
They thrive on live food and love termites, this is essential if you want to breed them, or at least a live food supplement.
They build their nest fairly high from the ground but not in the highest trees preffering shrubs about 6-9' high, they almost completely cover the entrance to their nest and build it as close as possible to the end of a couple of branches. As snakes are a major problem for them they gain access to the nest from the bottom, flying in from under the nest.
They build their nest with very, very fine grass. This helps them shape it in its preferred form, almost dome like being longer/deeper than it is high. So I suggest using fine grasses for nesting material.
Here is a pic of their natural environment.
Here is another African bird, the grey hornbill a managed to take a pic of.
And here is just a pic of a local inhabitant of the game farm, don't pay attention to the date stamp, I only noticed it was wrong on the second day.
There is good news and bad. The good news is, I saw them! The bad news I could not get close enough to one to get a pic. Anyone who owns Cordons Know that they LOVE flying at as high speed as possible and in the wild this is more true.
I did do some extensive research on their natural environment (not anything scientific of course) and learned a couple of valuable things.
For those of you who don't know, there are 3 sub-species of CB one of which is found in South Africa where I live namely the BBCB.
There is a whole geographic distribution on the FIC, but here are a couple of things I've experienced first hand.
They thrive on live food and love termites, this is essential if you want to breed them, or at least a live food supplement.
They build their nest fairly high from the ground but not in the highest trees preffering shrubs about 6-9' high, they almost completely cover the entrance to their nest and build it as close as possible to the end of a couple of branches. As snakes are a major problem for them they gain access to the nest from the bottom, flying in from under the nest.
They build their nest with very, very fine grass. This helps them shape it in its preferred form, almost dome like being longer/deeper than it is high. So I suggest using fine grasses for nesting material.
Here is a pic of their natural environment.
Here is another African bird, the grey hornbill a managed to take a pic of.
And here is just a pic of a local inhabitant of the game farm, don't pay attention to the date stamp, I only noticed it was wrong on the second day.
