Juggling Acts With Birds

By David Cain

In the past, I’ve written about juggling acts done on horseback and juggling acts that included monkeys or chimpanzees. Today, we’ll look at acts that have included birds. Before we get started, I should say that I’m not recommending or condoning the use of animals in juggling acts. I’m just reporting on the history of the genre.

Birds are commonly involved in magic shows. One example of this that crosses over with juggling is the act of Greg Frewin, turning bounce juggling balls into birds in the following video at around the 4-minute mark.

Esteban Valez, my fellow juggling historian and eJuggle contributor, wrote an article about Lyubov Zhernova, which you can read by clicking here. Lyubov cascaded three birds in her act, as you can see below starting at the 4:20 mark.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, birds were often used by jugglers as part of balancing feats. The birds would often flap their wings to make various parts of the balanced apparatus turn or move.

Carlo Romeo can be seen in the following images from 1893 doing such balances.

Carlo Romeo balancing a windmill with birds on the sails of the windmill

Birds on bicycles, Carlo Romeo 1893

Carlo Romeo 1893

Similar tricks were done by the Montaldos.

Montaldos

Montaldos

Montaldos

Joseph Jalvan, whom you can read about here, incorporated balancing tricks involving birds.

Joseph Jalvan

Joseph Jalvan

There have also been several birds that were billed as jugglers. One was Jocko, the juggling crow, whom you can read about below. He was a star attraction in the 1920s.

The act of Nova and Otti involved a juggler (Nova) juggling balls that were then caught and returned by his bird (Otti).

Nova and Otti

The parrot in the following video catches balls similar to Nova and Otti.

Here is a modern circus act that concludes with a juggle of three birds.

If you know of any other juggling acts involving birds in a meaningful way, please let me know.