KOHAT: The sale of songbirds such as parrots and canaries is picking up in the birds market here.

The sale of Kashmiri parrots has also started in the market, but such birds are brought on demand due to their high price of around Rs14,000 per male bird.

The beautiful Iranian canary available in one or mixed colours is also popular. The buyers like white and dark yellow canary, which are scarce. Canaries need great care because they could die after a mosquito bite. Their cage is usually covered with a net to keep them safe from mosquitoes.

Prices of canary birds range between Rs4,000 and Rs7,000. They are kept in special cages with one food pot for egg and another for a piece of fruit.

They sing so much that if an Australian parrot or other such bird is kept with them they also learn and start singing.

Local traders say that canaries are usually smuggled in buses from Iranian border in Balochistan and only a few of the birds reach destination while others die on the way because they are so fragile that they could not be held in hands, but transferred from cage to cage.

Lovebird parrots are also popular these days and such birds are brought from big markets in Lahore and Karachi. With the passage of time the people learnt that such parrots could chatter many voices and their prices jumped to over Rs5,000 a pair. They are available in different colours in the local bird market.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2018