16 Names updated as of Nov. 6, 2023. If we omitted or misspelled your name, please contact us at (248) 336-5725 so we may correct our records. If you’ve ever strolled through the Matilda R. Wilson Free-Flight Aviary and noticed small, fluffy brown birds with exceptionally long tails, you’ve seen speckled mousebirds. “The key characteristic is their tail — it’s longer than the rest of their body,” says Charlie Ramsey, bird supervisor at the Detroit Zoo. “While most birds have feather tracts — defined rows where their feathers grow, giving them a sleek appearance — mousebirds don’t. They have a fuzzy look — sort of a constant state of bedhead all over their bodies.” Ramsey’s work involves monitoring the birds’ habitats and checking in with zookeepers, helping to make sure the birds are thriving. And in the case of the mousebirds, thriving is an understatement. Their population was growing to the point that their habitat needed to grow too. So it was decided: the male mousebirds would remain in the aviary, and work got underway for brand-new digs for the females — in the Hideaway, an indoor winter home for red ruffed and ring-tailed lemurs. IT STARTS WITH A PLAN Plans for the mousebird habitat began, as always, with a focus on what the mousebirds would need in their environment to thrive. “Native to sub-Saharan Africa, mousebirds can thrive in a variety of habitat types, anywhere from open savanna to scrubby brushlands and open forest,” Ramsey explains. “They’re really good at using their feet. You’ll sometimes see them hanging with one foot and eating with the other, so we made sure they have lots of things to perch on, live plants to hide in and leaves to nibble. They dust bathe, so their environment has dry sand, plus an ultraviolet light source to give them the full spectrum of vision they’d have in the wild.” Dazzmin Dabish is a project manager on the construction team at the Zoo. She helped oversee the building of the mousebird habitat, start to finish, in a 125 square-foot area that originally housed a corner planter and fountain. “The mousebirds like a dry climate, so we got rid of the fountain,” she says. “We needed a drain system, so we had to dig down beneath the planter, go through a wall, drop down to the basement and tie into the sewer. We also knew they’d need a meshed-in enclosure, but we MOUSEBIRDS on the Move LEMURS GET NEW NEIGHBORS IN THE HIDEAWAY
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