Saturday afternoon. Dale and Cookie are ten and nine days old, respectively. Cute little buggers. Now it’s apparent that Dale will be a white and Cookie more of a Sophie/Geri color. And the parents are all horny again.
Speaking of Sophie, he’s out there right now – and he’s definitely turned out to be a male – comes to visit every day but sleeps elsewhere. Dad did a good job of driving him away at night. Now at night we have only Frankie, who turned six weeks old yesterday, and Clarice, turned four months old yesterday. And the young squabs, of course. But while the parents still allow Frankie to eat with them at night, Clarice must wait until they’re finished, or else she gets chased away by both parents. She doesn’t even try now, just waits for them to finish.
Sad news about the doves down below. Thursday I noticed the nest was gone – doves, eggs and everything. Dunno, maybe the residents came home after a trip and didn’tlike it. The wife thinks there’s a nice family in that unit. I wonder what they did with the nest and eggs.
Thursday morning, and Dale and Cookie are 15 and 14 days old. Both a full two weeks. Healthy and happy, just little feather balls. Photos soon.
The issue of what to do about the parents is looming larger. They’ve started screwing like teenagers again. Kinky too, with Ladyboy sometimes on top. We think we’re going to try to make the next clutch of eggs the last by removing the flower box after the next squabs are about a week old. That’s just short of the time the parents start screwing again, and we’re thinking – hoping – maybe without a place for the nest, they’ll maybe find someplace else? Well, probably not, but it’s a first step. We’ll put what will be the week-old squabs on the floor and pick them up for balcony cleanings.
We’ll be upcountry twice next month for a few days each time and then at Angkor Wat in Cambodia in July, so this will maybe get the parents used to fending more for themselves too.
First, let’s get this one out of the way. I already showed it on the SDMB photo thread and include it here since it’s already on the page. Me and the Mrs. with the actor Steven Seagal behind us, the Great American Rib Company, Bangkok, May 1.
And now we come to that dove’s nest on the balcony two floors below ours that I mentioned. Here’s the nest with one egg, sort of near the top of the vertical “line” running along the rail. And with a parent. Dunno, but you may have to zoom in a bit, but once you spot the nest and especially the white egg, it’s easy to see. Sadly, the unit residents took the nest away a few days later.
Finally, yesterday (Friday) at ages 15 and 16 days old. Dale is on the right and turning into more of a whitie, although you can tell he’ll have some black spots dotted around. Cookie may be another Frankie.
And all the photos can be seen on a single page here.
You’ve sure raised some beautiful birds. I’m still amazed you can tell them all apart, but I guess that comes from seeing them every day for such a long time.
Sad to hear you’ll be leaving them. Maybe ask a neighbor if they’d be willing to take over pidgee duty & give them the nesting box? Thanks for all the great pictures.
Those are some interesting pictures. With birds it’s amazing howugly(to me) the newly hatched are, and how quickly they mature and become beautiful. My favorites are the whities, but they are all lovely in their own way.
Those pictures are a lot of work, don’t ever lost them, some birders might be interested in them for archival work.
I’ll admit, if some of the earlier ones showed up now – for example, Charlie from three years ago or even those from Big and Little Pidgee even longer ago – we’d probably not recognize them. But apart from the normal gray ones, they all carry distinctive markings. I won’t lose the photos, no worries there. This hard drive will be going with us, as we’ve got all sorts of photos on it, not just pidgees, although this computer is maybe 10 years old now, at least close to that, so a new computer will be a priority once back in Hawaii. We’ll have the photos backed up anyway, but all the best pidgee ones are on Flickr now, or at least the recent ones since my previous photo service went down. I’m afraid having a neighbor take over pidgee duties probably isn’t going to work, unfortunately.
But for now … we have a new egg! Laid yesterday evening (Saturday evening), close to 6pm. This seems to be the normal time of day for egg laying, at least for her. And we knew it was coming. Ladyboy started hanging around in the flower box, and The Bully took up his usual guard position right by the box, standing at attention like a little soldier, a sure sign he’s protecting her while she does her business. And sure enough, an egg soon appeared. Funny but he always faces inward toward us when he does this, so I guess he believes any danger would come from us. He would also flee like a bat out of hell if I really did go out and try to interfere, heh. I have a photo of him standing guard and will post it in the next round of photos.
The next egg will appear Monday evening for sure. The next batch will be Shawn and Apple. (Apple is a common girl’s nickname in Thailand. There is no Thai word for “apple,” they use the English word but pronounce it more like “ap-buhn.”) Sadly, we feel we should make this the final clutch, although how we’re going to carry this out exactly we’re not sure. Removing the flower box may not be enough. But we’ve already contacted a realtor and will be signing a contract probably in the coming week. It’s best if the guys set up house somewhere else now, much as that saddens us.
And we do have the second egg, laid late yesterday (Monday) afternoon, The Bully standing guard again, heh. Shawn and Apple, with hatchings to begin about May 31. But we’ll be away for a few days from June 1, so there’s a chance we won’t see them happen.
Monday morning, and Dale and Cookie are 26 and 25 days old, respectively. Healthy and happy. No signs whatsoever of the virus, and it usually starts manifesting at about three weeks, so we’re reasonably confident we’re over the hump. January was the last virus outbreak, Rudolph and Clarice the victims. (Still not sure what poor little Bo came down with, perhaps it was the virus manifesting internally, but we’ll never know. We’re fairly certain he went off and died somewhere.) Poor Rudolph, I still think Sophie pushed him off the ledge, but Clarice is alive and well and still sleeping here at night. Dale is a “dirty white,” Cookie a toasted-marshmallow color. This is my favorite age for pidgees – running around and staring at everything in wonder but still to young to fly.
The new eggs continue to incubate. Hatchings should start next week about the time we go out of town – the wife to Myanmar on business for a couple of days, me to the beach, where the wife will catch up with me on return. Hope the hatchings go well. But this and a subsequent trip in June should serve to start preparing them for The End.
But we’re sticking to our plan. When the new squabs are about a week old, we’ll set them on the floor and remove the flower box. This should be just before the parents start getting all horny again. The squabs should be old enough to adjust. Without a box for a nest, we’re hoping the parents will lay their eggs elsewhere. Hoping but not too hopeful, as they clearly consider this their home, but one step at a time. The absolute last resort will be to put up netting. I’m scheduled to fly out of here on August 1, while the wife is about to turn in a contract to the realtor promising to have vacated the premises completely by September 1 in case a buyer is interested. (We’re hoping she can join me in Hawaii no later than October, but by year-end for sure.)
A few last photos before we go out of town next week.
I’ve mentioned The Bully standing guard for his sweetie whenever she lays new eggs. Here he is doing just that on May 14, when Ladyboy laid the first of the new clutch. The egg had already been laid at this point, but he still stood there at attention for quite a while. Good man! And Dale and Cookie are 17 and 16 days old here, respectively. And in this one, you can just see the fresh egg underneath Mama.
And the next day, May 15. Still just the one egg until the next day.
Meanwhile, it’s late Friday morning here, Dale and Cookie are 30 and 29 days old, and Cookie flew over to the window frames this morning. Haven’t seen Dale fly yet even though he’s the older one. Usually they take it in stages, flying first up to the top rail and then a day or two later over to the window frames, but Cookie went straight over. I think she was following Dad. She disappeared completely then, maybe went down to the balcony below, but then reappeared shortly.
Monday about noontime. Don’t know if I’ll have much chance to log on again before going upcountry, but I’ll be back early next week. Dale and Cookie are 33 and 32 days old, respectively. Both are flying now. Cookie disappeared the other night but returned yesterday and has stayed close to home since. We expect new hatchings as early as tomorrow, so we’ll miss that probably. Hope it goes well. Sometime next week, when the new squabs are about a week old, we plan to remove the flower box. We’ll see what happens.
Today marks three years since Ladyboy laid her first egg on our balcony. I wonder where Charlie, the squab that eventually emerged from that one, is today.
We haven’t seen Henry or Geri for a few weeks. They may have given up on us. Their timing is usually poor for feedings.
And shortly after writing the post above, I noticed cracks appearing in one of the eggs. Little Shawn is trying to come out. Looks like we’ll be seeing him before we head out.
Thanks. It will be one of several short “Last Look” trips including Angkor Wat in mid-July. These will also help prepare the parents for no midnight snackies.
And I did see Henry briefly today. But then Sophie chased him away! Chased his own grandfather.
Final logon before we leave early tomorrow. Tuesday night now, and we have little Shawn. He broke free this evening. Dunno if we’ll see Apple in the morning, but the eggs always hatch no more than one day apart. No signs of cracks in her egg now though. Shawn is a healthy, wiggly little squab.
Sunday night. Upon returning home late this afternoon, we found little Apple had hatched okay. We’re assuming she hatched the day we left last week, the day after Shawn hatched, because that’s the normal course. So Shawn is five days old with eyes open, Apple four days old with eyes just barely starting to open. Still have the now-usual crew of Clarise, Frankie, Dale and Cookie. They were happy to see us again.
And we’ll be gone again the weekend after next, but this week we’ll pull the flower box. I’m afraid it’s getting close to time to say goodbye.
And the deed has been done. Monday night, after distracting the parents with food, we placed little Shawn and little Apple, aged six and five days, on the floor and removed the flower box.
The parents had started acting sweet again, so we figured screwing was about to begin again. We’re hoping that with nothing but the open floor, they’ll choose to lay their eggs somewhere else. But then we’re still feeding them, so who knows. They appeared shocked at the box removal, but it’s Wednesday morning now, and they seem to have adjusted. Mama is still covering them as best she can. Now they’re eight and seven days old, and without the constraints of the box walls, they’re scooting around. Another week or so and they should be walking.
The weekend after this, we’re going out of town again. Mom and Dad will face another period of fending for themselves. Maybe we’re just imagining things, but we think they know something is up.
