{"id":128,"date":"2010-06-05T02:49:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-05T02:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/?p=128"},"modified":"2010-06-05T02:49:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-05T02:49:00","slug":"drunken-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/?p=128","title":{"rendered":"Drunken Birds?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My sense of the absurd was grabbed and throttled today by reports of drunken birds falling from the sky down under. In particular, red-collared lorikeets seem to be eating something that leaves them too drunk to fly and\/or stand. It is not like a red-collared lorikeet is that inconspicuous of a bird to begin with:<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_RvuxwM9-lN0\/TAm0Fhw4G1I\/AAAAAAAAAqY\/e_ue7WYvpkE\/s1600\/red_collared_lorikeets.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" border=\"0\" height=\"208\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_RvuxwM9-lN0\/TAm0Fhw4G1I\/AAAAAAAAAqY\/e_ue7WYvpkE\/s400\/red_collared_lorikeets.jpg\" width=\"400\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><i>Red-collared Lorikeets<\/i><\/div>\n<div><i>(Credit: Mitch Reardon)<\/i><\/div>\n<p>Now picture these guys falling out of the sky and trees drunk. As the original report in the Australian Geographic Journal reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span>SEEMINGLY DRUNKEN AND HUNGOVER\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>parrots are dropping out of the sky in the Northern Territory and experts are at a loss to explain why.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span> <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The red-collared lorikeets lose coordination and pass out after eating a mystery food, Lisa Hansen, of the Ark Animal Hospital at Palmerston, near Darwin said on Thursday. Red-collared lorikeets are an NT subspecies of the rainbow lorikeet (<span>Trichoglossus rubritorquis<\/span>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It happens every year around this season, they lose all balance and we find them fallen out of trees and the sky,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Unless someone intervenes, they can&#8217;t fly and will get picked up by predators.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Read more:\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.australiangeographic.com.au\/journal\/drunken-parrots-falling-from-sky.htm#ixzz0pwQbWM7r\"><span>http:\/\/www.australiangeographic.com.au\/journal\/drunken-parrots-falling-from-sky.htm#ixzz0pwQbWM7r<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t wait until the crows and robins around here learn which plant leads to intoxication. Think of it &#8211; hundreds of crows and robins crashing to the ground all around. The cats would be in seventh heaven. <i>(Unless they decide to hit the catnip instead.)<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Drunken birds do happen every once in a blue moon around here when berries ferment on the bushes and the birds imbibe, but it usually isn&#8217;t to the point they cannot stand up &#8211; it just makes them fly a little funny and poop a lot.<\/p>\n<p>Are your birds hitting the sauce as summer begins <i>(actually winter down under)<\/i>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My sense of the absurd was grabbed and throttled today by reports of drunken birds falling from the sky down under. In particular, red-collared lorikeets seem to be eating something that leaves them too drunk to fly and\/or stand. It is not like a red-collared lorikeet is that inconspicuous of a bird to begin with: &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/?p=128\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Drunken Birds?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[158,157],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dljones.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}