Mary Allen
Tropical birds come from light-intensive areas. This must also be taken into account when it comes to posture. Not everything that people perceive as bright is also.
To get straight to the point: There is no substitute for natural sunlight. It is optimal if a bird can freely choose whether it wants to sit outside in the sun or inside. In strong sunlight, however, outdoor aviaries are often empty. The birds prefer to sit in the dim interior. They are also particularly active in nature in the morning and evening hours. They spend the hot midday hours dozing in the shade of the leaves in the treetops. Many bird species come from the tropical rain forest, from gallery forests, or from savannas with tree islands. The light intensity is significantly higher near the equator, i.e. where most tropical birds live than here in the alpine country of Switzerland.
It is not possible for all enthusiasts to allow birds to fly freely in outdoor aviaries. However, birds can very well be kept indoors. Sufficient light is crucial. And this is where our human eye deceives us. Heinz Müller from Kölliken AG has dealt intensively with artificial lighting for bird systems. The metalworker also consulted physicists. “Although my parrots can visit small outdoor aviaries, in winter the sun’s rays don’t reach the enclosure at all for several weeks,” says Müller about his bird husbandry. That’s why he wanted to provide better lighting in the interior.
Artificial Daylight
Heinz Muller keeps his birds in the Schöftland small animal facility in a house that has natural windows. But they don’t let enough light in. Müller rejects lighting with fluorescent tubes, as they were used in the past. “Our human eye perceives this light as normal, but the bird’s eye perceives a constant flickering.” To prove it, he holds his mobile phone under a fluorescent tube in the common room of the small animal facility and films the light. The constant flickering becomes clear. “Only with lamps with electronic ballasts do birds no longer notice the flickering, since the clock frequency has increased to over 150 per second,” explains Müller. He has now installed LED strips in the daylight spectrum above his aviaries and is very happy with them. Because an LED light does not flicker at all.
Light intensity is measured in Kelvin. LED in the daylight spectrum reaches up to 6500 Kelvin, which corresponds to a clear, cloudless sky. For comparison: a 60-watt light bulb or normal office lamp achieves between 2000 and 2700 Kelvin, a white fluorescent tube 4500 Kelvin. More than 6500 Kelvin is not recommended, because then the light would fall into the blue-violet. “Since I installed the LED daylight strips above the aviaries, my birds are significantly more active, and the plumage colors are more effective,” says Müller.
It now illuminates five aviary compartments with dimmable LED strips, which would only consume a total of 48 watts of electricity. “A single fluorescent tube used to consume that much,” says Müller. At night, a residual light, similar to moonlight, remains. The LED strips can be incorporated into metal profiles and attached to the ceiling above the aviaries or simply placed over the aviaries with an attachment so that the parrots cannot reach them. Müller emphasizes that it is not simply done with LED light, but that it is important that LEDs are used in the daylight spectrum.
Artificial Sunlight
While it has long been known that reptiles need ultraviolet light to remain healthy and survive in the long term, it has only been known for a few years that birds also see ultraviolet light. Birds, thanks to ultraviolet rays, perceive plumage colors and the state of ripeness of fruits differently. Although many species show no sex differences to the human eye, the birds probably do see differences when exposed to ultraviolet light.
In addition, some birds can only break down certain vitamins in the body if they are also exposed to UV-B rays. Vitamin D3, especially in parrots, can only be built up through sunlight. It is essential for calcium metabolism. While UV-A penetrates glass, a large part of UV-B is filtered out by glass. So if you keep birds in your room, you should open the windows during the warmer months of the year so that direct sunlight falls on the indoor aviary.
Specialist shops offer special lights that emit ultraviolet light. Heinz Müller has also familiarized himself with this topic. And he has found that not all lamps sold as bird lights are effective. “Birds absorb ultraviolet light by sunbathing.” However, they only showed this behavior when a lamp also gave off heat. “However, a number of products available commercially as bird lamps only emit UV light but no heat and are therefore useless.”
He always checks the spectrogram when he buys a lamp for bird lighting. UV-B is often not included. And it is precisely this area that is important for birds. Using a special device, Müller measured the UV-A and UV-B rays under so-called bird lamps and behind a pane of glass. His amazing finding: on a sunny day, panes of glass let through more UV light than fluorescent tubes with a UV light component. In addition, this UV light is only effective directly under the tubes. Half a year after use, the tubes would have to be replaced. Metal vapor lamps are much more effective. “They generate heat and encourage birds to sunbathe,” explains Müller.
Beware of Electrosmog
Such lamps consume a lot of electricity, but it is also not necessary to leave them on for a long time. Half an hour three times a day in the morning and evening hours is enough, the birds seek the light when they need it. Heinz Müller uses a sun lamp with ultraviolet light in front of his aviaries, which he moves manually so that all birds can benefit from it over the course of the week. The wavelength comparison of light is abbreviated to «nm». The structure begins at 100 nm with X-rays and extends through UV-C, UV-B, and UV-A up to 350 nm. The light visible to humans only begins at around 400 nm.
There is too little research into how electrically operated devices affect animals in the long term. In her books, the German homeopath Rosina Sonnenschmidt warns against electrosmog to which birds are exposed when the entire box is illuminated with a fluorescent tube. LED appears to be the better solution in this respect as well. It is important that the birds can seek out darker areas in their indoor aviary. Müller’s LED lighting does not cover the entire aviary either. In addition, a change makes sense, because daylight also has different intensities. It is ideal if birds can benefit from natural light and only have to be artificially lit from time to time to optimize keeping.