Love is in the air

Love is in the air. With Valentine’s Day recently, it’s that time of year when we all start thinking about finding love or showing our loved ones that we care about them. Come February, our birds at Zoo Atlanta start thinking about “finding the one” as much as humans do. Birds show their affection for one another in many different ways. Hooded vultures chase each other, milky eagle owls call to one another, peafowl males show off their beautiful plumage to the females, and the blue cranes dance together. The further into spring and summer we get, the more of these types of displays you’ll see as you walk around the Zoo.

A few of our couples are already amid their breeding season! Our lappet-faced vultures, Amana and Anubis, have wrapped up building their giant nest and are now taking turns incubating an egg! These two will continue to share parental duties evenly and make sure they still get time to themselves outside, just like human parents might.

Our tawny frogmouth pairs have also been courting. The female and male woo each other by calling back and forth with a low hooting grunt in the early morning hours.

These two pairs are in long lasting and stable couples with a lot of breeding success. And we hope to have more chicks from them in the coming months!

Our hooded vultures, Marian and Turkey, are a brand-new pair, but they have hit the ground running. They have already shown that they can build a beautiful nest together, and we have a lot of hope they will be great parents soon! You might be able to catch them inspecting their nest together, trying to steal the other’s diets or wrestling along the ground.

Love comes in many forms, especially in the animal kingdom. I hope you enjoyed your Valentine’s Day with your own partner and expressed your affection in your own unique way just like our bird friends.

Samantha G.
Senior Keeper, Birds