LAZY BIRDS
Researchers in Gruenau, Austria have provided a flock of lazy birds with a car and driver because they are incapable of migrating on their own. Ornithologists from the Konrad Lorenz research centre have spent more than two years breeding the Northern Bald Ibis species.
The birds were escorted to their winter quarters in the Maremma region in northern Italy by car because they simply couldn’t be bothered to make the 500 mile trip. If they’d flown, the birds (which are about 80 centimetres tall with slimy black feathers) would have taken about a fortnight to complete the journey.
Dr Kurt Kotrschal from the Zoology Department at Vienna University said: ‘The birds are used to the all-inclusive treatment at the research centre. So we had to pack the lazy birds into the car and drive them.’
The species had once been widespread in Austria but was entirely wiped out in the Middle Ages. Experts claimed that the idle things had lost their natural sense of orientation and are now being retrained in hang gliders.
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