Photo: © Shutterstock.com/sbw18. Wild hooded pittas enjoy a diet of invertebrates, their larvae and small lizards. Captive birds can be offered locusts, crickets, mealworms and waxmoths In a beauty contest among bird families in the Old World Tropics, the…
Photo: © Shutterstock.com/YapAhock. Calculated risk: Geoff bought 10 unidentified juvenile flowerpeckers, two of which moulted out to be scarlet-breasted Geoff Gradwell has been lucky to have kept some unusual and rare species during his time in aviculture. He recalls some…
Photo:© Shutterstock.com/RachelKolokoffHopper. Southern black flycatcher: a lovely glossy songbird found widely south of the Sahara Our almost African summer must have looked familiar to many of Gary Bralsford’s hot-country species! Here he brings us up to date with his…
Photo: © Shutterstock.com/Christopher Becerra. Green honeycreeper: the only member of the genus Chlorophanes. This species was a regular addition to Geoff’s collection Geoff Gradwell has worked with some of the most beautiful species in the Neotropics during his career…
Photo: © Shutterstock.com/Renata PedrozoBrassy-breasted tanager (Tangara desmaresti): a species Geoff has kept and had success with at bird shows When Geoff Gradwell took a liking to the charismatic members of the tanager family, it was the start of a…
Photo: male golden oriole Widespread in Europe, but painfully rare nowadays in Britain, the golden oriole is worth a close look wherever it’s seen. Jarrod Cotter examines a male bird THE golden oriole (Oriolus oriolus) is a blackbird-sized…
Photo: © Shutterstock.com/wannachat. Nicobar pigeons: even from this angle the nest looks more solid than the flakey affairs built by most species of pigeon With its odd stocky build and ornate hackles, the Nicobar pigeon doesn’t look an ace…
Photo: © Shutterstock.com/noicherrybeans. Streaked spiderhunter (Arachnothera magna): a species Geoff owned in the early 1990s After tough challenges in the late 1960s, Geoff Gradwell bounced back with a collection even more varied than before. Before too long, he was…
Photo: Getty Images/Arun Roisri. Good enough to eat: an edible-nest swiftlet sitting on a fragment of its nest A massive demand for its nests might sound as though it would spell trouble for any wild bird. Yet, as Tony Tilford…
Photo: Terry Gonsolvis. Terry keeps 13 different species of foreign softbill, including rufous-bellied niltava (Niltava sundara). This flycatcher shows marked sexual dimorphism There’s nothing better than seeing that long-awaited pairing up or chicks being reared and leaving the nest-box, says…