A couple of crested screamers and a crazy ex: Why you can’t trust every bloody bird with a mobile
I’m not sure many people will have heard of the ‘crested screamer’ but I read a quite heart-warming story about two of these creatures.
You wouldn’t think so, judging by their name, but this couple of screamers was actually quite shy. In fact, they turned out to be such a nerdy pair of bloody wall-flowers that their warden felt forced to do something about it:
Washington Wetland centre is home to a pair of crested screamers, which use their distinctive calls to mark their territory and attract a mate. However, the centre’s birds have shown no interest in mating.
So, staff at a Wearside nature reserve have been using a mobile phone to encourage two South American birds to mate. A recording of a screamer’s call has now been downloaded from the internet onto a phone and is being played to the birds in a bid to get them in the mood.
Warden Owen Joiner said: “They’re a prehistoric species and this is reflected in the way that they move - everything happens at an incredibly slow pace. Hopefully the recording will spark something in them and then nature will take its course. They are starting to react to the recording, which is very exciting, so we’ll just have to see what happens.”
Well, one of the things that could happen is the following, I’m afraid:
When Timothy Mortimore broke up with his girlfriend, he expected to have nothing more to do with her. Lee Amor had other ideas. She used her mobile phone to contact him more than 10,000 times in 65 days – the equivalent of once every eight minutes. The 23-year-old called or texted Mr Mortimore relentlessly after they split up and she became pregnant.
Wrongly convinced the baby was his, Amor sent her 37-year-old ex-boyfriend used pregnancy tests and even left a bottle of urine on his doorstep in an apparent attempt to show him he was the father.
I’m not suggesting that the female crested screamer will prove to be as much of a nutcase as Lee Amor, of course.
Just saying that you can’t trust every bloody bird with a mobile phone…
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