by Mark Phelps

I never intended to own more birds than my one White-Faced Cockatiel. We had a nice arrangement - I fed him, he pooped, and I cleaned up after him. It really worked out nicely.

Then back in January, when Darla learned that Bird Haven...

(Yes, I know. But when you're into Softbills like we are, where else are you going to go? Anyway, her Blue-Green Glossy Starling that took Best Bird in Show-Division F at NIROC last year came from Bird Haven. So there.)

... was going out of business, we decided to take a last chance at picking up some
possibly hard to get birds at good prices to round out and/or increase the diversity of
Darla's collection.

We got there and starting looking for birds for Darla when I saw them. They were
quiet, stately, calm, and beautiful. Then one flapped. I was hooked.

We had never seen anything like these before. We mistakenly thought they were some kind of Barbet, but were informed they were "Blue-Bellied Rollers."

After learning that they came from Mali in West Africa, what they were being fed (dog food and beef heart), and negotiating a price (which was 75% off what he was previously asking - let's hear it for "Going Out of Business" sales) and also that these birds were fairly rare in the United States because their breeding grounds are hard to get to, I took my new birds home and began what has turned into quite a saga.

I was fairly confident that I would be able to take care of them based on what Darla knows. She owns many types of Softbills and has done extensive research on them. So, I left them on the counter at home in a box and ran from pet store to pet store to find a suitable cage, food, and accessories. I ended up with Midwest's 3' x 4' x 2' parrot cage that I had to replace the perch (it ran the wrong way).

The next day I went to my local library, confident that this great holding place of knowledge would have all the Blue-Bellied Roller information a guy could ever want. Boy was I wrong.
I found the "Bird" section easy enough, and it had most of the books we've all seen a dozen times (The New [insert name of bird species here] Handbook), but found only a half a page worth of info on the Lilac Breasted Roller. Hmmm, close but no cigar. It seemed that this cousin to my birds was similar to mine but from a different part of Africa, so it's needs could be different.

I then pulled out the big guns and went right to the reference section and Grzmek's Animal Encyclopedia. An encyclopedia that took up six feet of shelf space and was dedicated just to animals has got to have all my answers.

Boy was I wrong.

I was able to locate two pages on the "True Rollers" sub-species (Coracias) and three whole sentences about Blue-Bellied Rollers. Which, to paraphrase, were:

1. They are Blue with the Latin name of Coracias cyanogaster.
2. They are from West Africa.
3. They are beautiful.

Well great! I now could confirm that I was not color blind, Bird Haven was right as to where they came from, and some encyclopedia writer also has good taste.

I must admit that this was not a total bust, as I learned that the "True Rollers" are loosely related to Kingfishers and Kookaburras and were grouped together not only because of some very boring bone structure reasons, but also because of how they earned their name. They are insectivores and will actually "loop" and tumble in flight while chasing insects and also when displaying while looking for a mate. I also learned that they will also eat some fruit and berries, as well as small rodents, lizards, and other small birds.

It was at this point, I really understood that I had happened upon something very special. I had in my possession birds that were truly rare, and Frank at Bird Haven wasn't just blowing smoke up my skirt to get me to buy them. I knew that I now had a greater responsibility than just keeping them healthy and happy. I had a responsibility to their species, not just two birds.

O.K.... Enough of making myself sound noble and back to the story....

Well, the library was no help, so now what do I do? I turned to the National Finch and Softbill Society. It's their purpose to know all about Finches and Softbills, so they should have all the answers.

Boy was I wrong.

Dr. Al was very helpful in confirming that Rollers show as "Large Softbills - A.O.V." and that, yes, Blue-Bellied Rollers are rare in the United States and suggested a very good book by Martin Vance, which we already had, as a good source of general information about the keeping of Softbills. However, that was the extent of the help the NFSS could provide.

So now what? Well, this is the 90's, so I turned to the greatest source of information on the planet today...THE INTERNET!!!! If I could get past all the sex sites, I should find all the information I could ever want and then some.

Boy was I wrong.

For you folks who are familiar with the net and have ever searched for anything before, you know that no matter what you search for, you always get an average of 10,417 hits. Well, I cranked up AOL, typed in "blue bellied rollers" and got 3 hits. Three? One was a company that sells postage stamp collections and for some reason Nicaragua put Blue-Bellied Rollers on a stamp, the other two pointed to the exact same list of all the birds of the world and their Latin names. What a disappointment!!!

But, as you true computer geeks know, AOL sucks. So, I switched over to Yahoo! and got..... 4 hits. AltaVista.... 4 hits. Lycos... 4 hits. And all the same four! The same three that AOL found plus another site that has been a Godsend!

The site was for ISIS (International Species Information Service (www.worldzoo.org]). This is an organization that works mainly as a clearing house of information for what zoos have what animals. They had a listing for Blue-Bellied Rollers.

I was able to confirm that just four zoos in the world had only 18 in captivity. They were the San Diego Zoo, San Diego Wild Animal Park, The Toledo Zoological Garden, and Leeds Castle in England. I was able to get only addresses off the ISIS site, so I sent letters to all these zoos asking for information.

Now while all this was going on, I was doing the best I could to take care of and feed them. But when you have no info, you try your best.

Darla has had great success with feeding her Softbills, mostly through a lot of reading and a lot of trial and error, so I tried her methods to see what would happen. They liked the dog food (Nutro Max Special - we recommend this for ALL birds...oh, and your dog) and really liked cut up beef heart (yes a cow's heart - high in protein/low in fat), but Softbills also like fruit, right?

Boy was I wrong.

I regretted trying to feed them apple, because they didn't go anywhere near their food bowl when that was in there, and I regretted both the blueberries and blackberries, as most of them ended up on the walls because the rollers would shake them off the pieces of dog food. They actually ate bananas, but I think that that was only because it was stuck to the dog food and they couldn't get it off. Based on the info about Lilac Breasted Rollers, I wanted to try "live" food, but was hesitant to try anything more daring than wax worms until I learned more about what they could or couldn't digest.

Then the day finally came....A phone call from Michael Mace, the curator of birds at the San Diego Wild Animal Park!!! We talked for about a half hour discussing everything from breeding (not to hard with plenty of room and cockatiel and/or small parrot nest boxes) to food. It was nice finally getting some good information from someone with "hands on" experience. The only part that was disappointing was that when he said plenty of room for breeding he meant a 20' x 20' x 8' flight. Hmm....do I really need my living room......

With my new found knowledge and confidence, I stopped with the fruit as Blue-Bellied Rollers are strictly insectivores/carnivores and I expanded their food to include crickets and pinkie rats. The crickets were easy, but disgusting. Buy a few dozen, throw them in the freezer to kill them and then throw a few in their food bowl. The rats on the other hand were a bit more interesting....

I had absolutely no idea how they would eat them. The rollers have a slight hook at the end of their beaks, so I thought they might tear them and eat them that way. Once again disgusting, but I was ready for the mess.

Boy was I wrong.

I tossed one in and stood back. To my amazement, one roller grabbed it by the neck and then started whacking it against the perch! This wasn't pretty. It was full blown, "I gotta kill this thing - smack it as hard as I can" whacking. After a few whacks, he flipped it up, caught it behind the hips and continued whacking. It went through this cycle a couple of more times, and then flipped it up and took the whole thing down in one gulp. Wow. What a show.

I was a bit concerned about their ability to digest the bones, but I had a good idea how they would handle them. Darla was fortunate enough one morning to see how they did handle it.

It's similar to how an Owl does it. Whatever doesn't digest, comes back up in a bundle the next morning and gets hacked out onto the bottom of the cage. Wow. What a show.

I also was becoming concerned about the amount of room that the rollers had, so I tried letting them out of their cage for a little exercise. It would be good for them and I could make this part of their daily routine for good overall general health.

Boy was I wrong.

Out they came and it didn't take me long to realize that Roller poop soaks into carpet really fast and that Rollers can't distinguish the difference between white apartment walls and air. After corralling them, I then cleaned the carpet, wiped the huge black marks from their beaks off the walls, and resolved to build them a bigger cage.

The saga of the cage building can wait for another day, but let's just say that with a little bit of engineering, a lot of sweat and swearing, thirty four 1 x 2's, and two rolls of this really cool 5/8" square plastic coated wire that you can get from Builder's Square, I had a 8' x 5' x 2' enclosure that now stands in my living room.

I also now felt I needed to know if I had a pair or two of the same sex. I wanted to be able to plan ahead for breeding season, or start searching for another source (yeah right - good luck).

I made an appointment with Dr. Nye's office. The person who handled it tried to schedule this for my Roller Pigeons (or are they Roller Canaries?). I gently corrected her that these were Blue-Bellied Rollers and that, yes, they were rare and she might want to point this out to everyone there so they might make time to stop in and see them.

I got to my appointment and was asked if this was the first time I had brought my Roller Pigeons (or are they Roller Canaries?) to Midwest. I gently corrected her and told her they were Blue-Bellied Rollers and then started my first visit paperwork.

I was shown to an exam room and uncovered their cage. Dr. Nye came in and said "That's not what they told me you had." The look on his face was priceless! I believe the correct description would be "his jaw dropped." He had been told that these were probably Roller Pigeons (or maybe Roller Canaries). Needless to say, a number of pictures were taken and everybody at that place stopped by at one point or another to see them.

They were given a clean bill of health, blood was drawn, and I crossed my fingers and waited for the results.

In about a week, the bad news came. Both males. Now what do I do?

I sent letters again to San Diego and Toledo asking to be involved in a breeding program with them and their birds. I didn't expect any positive reaction because, first off, I never heard back from Toledo from my original letter, and secondly, why would any zoo want to get involved in this sort of thing with somebody other than another zoo?

Boy was I wrong.

Once again, Mike Mace from the San Diego Wild Animal Park called me. He said that they had a few individuals in California that raised Blue-Bellied Rollers and that the zoo already had in place a breeding program with them. He talked to these people before he called me, and it seems that one of them is very interested in working with me. Once breeding season is over, he will be contacting me to work out the details. Mike also let me know that if things didn't work out, I may be able to work directly with him and the birds at the zoo. How about that? Me in a breeding program with a world famous zoo!?!

While all this was going on, I also got a nice letter back from Leeds Castle in England with some additional info. It seems the Curator of Birds was out on maternity leave and wasn't able to get back to me right away.

Also, the ISIS abstract has been updated, and there are now six zoos that have 31 Blue Bellied Rollers. The two new zoos are, unfortunately, in England and Singapore.

So why did I write all this anyway?

Anyone, especially bird people, that have heard any part of this story has been fascinated by it. I wanted to share my story with everyone in the club. I also wanted to show what can happen when you get involved with something new when it comes to birds. I have had an amazing time since getting these birds. I have had to reach beyond the usual "get a book - ask a few questions" type of new bird experience. I have learned a huge amount about birds in general by having to do research above and beyond the norm. And this from a guy who never really wanted anything more than his one cockatiel.

I would greatly encourage every one of us to read and learn as much as possible as we can about the birds we have. It's only fair to them that we provide them with the best lives possible in exchange for keeping them away from their natural habitats.

I also would encourage everyone to go beyond the types of birds you keep now. Parrot people - try finches. Finch people - try a hookbill. Everybody - try a softbill. It is easy to get more of what you already have, but, as I have learned, if you reach out to the unusual, what you get back can be a really fulfilling life experience.

Oh by the way...If you would like to see a Blue-Bellied Roller, I hope to debut them at National or just ask to see a picture. I've always got them with me.

It appears that the Internet today is doing a hair better than the Internet in the '90s. For a little more information about the Blue-Bellied Roller, check out the following sites:

Blue-Bellied Roller, The Columbus Zoo & Aquarium
Blue-Bellied Roller, Oakland Zoo