Birds Appreciate Enrichment

These images are highlights of the monthly special enrichment day at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, and provides insights into normal animal behavior. These birds -- a hadada ibis and a harpy eagle -- naturally manipulate the "toys" provided as they would manipulate items in the wild.

The hadada ibis is a widespread African species that feeds by tweezers-like probing in soil with its long, sensitive bill. When the bill touches a prey item, there is a rapid, almost instantaneous "bill snap." If the prey is small, the ibis may do a head toss, flipping it in the air, then neatly catching it. Or, it drops it, while simultaneously moving the head forward, so that the food item ends up in the mouth.

If, however, the hadada ibis finds something too big to handle easily, it uses the bill like a tool. It will hammer, shake, rip, and otherwise dismember the prey so it can be swallowed in pieces. Our hadada in the photo uses its bill to pull the cheerios off of the sting, to eat them one by one.

The harpy eagle weighs up to twenty pounds, one of the largest raptors in the world. Harpies live in deep forests in central and South America and they hunt by perching quietly and waiting for monkeys, sloths, birds, iguanas, or large rodents to pass by. They then ambush the prey in a swift, surprise flight. The bird's talons are up to five inches long and extremely powerful.

The harpy in the image above is excited when given a new item to play with, such as the pinata football. He will use his talons to grab and crush the cardboard, just as he would kill a prey item in the wild.

Photos by D. Bear-Hull