This has been great to follow. I agree with levdrakon, although I’d love to see more pics, videos would be awesome.
Yay! They’re awesome!
It’s been an interesting six weeks or so, since we returned home and found the eggs. The squabs, at least Snowy, must be making other little forays, because now there’s a bunch of little shit droppings all around the flowerpot. We’ve been washing down the area with buckets of water, mainly for ant control before, but now the shit’s not coming off with just water. If they’re not gone in a few days, we’ll have to risk scooting the flowerpot over to clean the area. They don’t seem very freaked by us, though, I guess because they’ve grown up around us, so maybe they won’t mind too much if it comes to that.
Four weeks old today (Thursday). Snowy got out of the flowerpot last night and stayed outside of it all night. She won’t venture away from it, though, which helpfully limits the area of shit on the balcony. Tried to take a photo, but I did not want to use the flash, and so it did not come out well. She climbed back in this morning after daybreak.
In the last couple of days, the parents have taken to hanging around together in a rectangular flower box that’s filled with dirt. They look cute, all cuddled up, but we’re not sure if we’re happy or not at the prospect of continued occupancy. Oh well.
I took this photo this morning out on the balcony. The rectangular flower box is on the left. Little Pidgee hopped up to prepare to flee when I went out there; Big Pidgee is in the box. The flowerpot with the squabs is on the right. Funy how the squabs are not too freaked out by us, I guess because they’ve grown up with us staring at them up close. They still hunker down a bit, though, when we get close. But the parents will flat-out flee.
I told you this once before, but one more time:
Ammonia based window-cleaner will clean up birdshit.
Spray liberally. Let soak 5-10 minutes. THEN flush with water. (a little soap will probably help, too) Trust me on this - I’ve owned birds for 15 years, and currently have three to clean up after.
We’ve been reluctant to put ammonia or anything else down just yet, especially now with the squabs out and about. Afraid of possibly making them sick. We expect they’ll be leaving in another couple of days, and then we’ll give it a good cleaning out there.
And Snowy is now running all over the balcony. Blackie has finally left the flowerpot but still clearly prefers to be inside it. This morning (Friday), I poured some water out there even though the squabs were standing around. Rather than freaking out, they seemed fascinated by it. Then Blackie discovered one of the water dishes we put out for their parents. He took a couple of tentative sips, and you could just see him thinking: “Wow! What IS this stuff?” Then drank some more.
I just love how you’re taking such good care of them. You rock. And your descriptions of their behavior is just adorable. 
:o
Below are four new photos, all taken this morning (Friday morning). They are 29 days old now.
Here is one of Snowy. She’s picked this general area as her favorite, hunkering down when not standing. I ventured to touch Snowy a couple of times on the head this morning. She flinched a little but did not freak. Not soft, though, but rather hardened a bit with a thin layer of shit. (I washed my hands afterward.)
Blackie is here and here. He largely enjoys walking around in the dirt of the two larger potted plants but will jump down to enjoy the feel of the water orunning over his feet when I pour a bucket.
Blackie is on the right standing in the potted plant, with Little Pidgee (the mother, we think), on the rail on the left in this photo here.
And there’s a new development: Big and Little Pidgee, the parents, are now placing twigs in the rectangular flower box for a new nest, so I guess a couple more eggs are on the way! They’ve stopped being so shy again, too; now I have to get really close before they fly away instead of just looking at them like these past couple of weeks.
I told the wife over the phone they are now officially nest-building again. She said let’s remove the flower box and hope they go away, but I said let them do this one more time, then we can get rid of stuff. I figure they’ll just put the nest on the floor of the balcony anyway. She agreed to let them stay for one more round, but really, we wish they would go somewhere else. She knows a veterinarian that she’s going to consult. And she’s going to ask our one neighbor who told us she had baby pigeons once, too; we don’t think they returned to her balcony. (Maybe she didn’t make them feel as at home as we have, like with water.)
Besides the fact that the flowerpot is still taken by the current squabs, we feel they may have chosen the rectangular flower box because it’s a bit removed from us, behind those plants. You can see it in post #104 above. A bit more exposed to the elements, though, if we get some more heavy rains.
[Homer Simpson] Squabs. Bglarlglegeble. [/Homer Simpson]
We saw something really neat this afternoon. Pigeon sex! And consensual, not like the apparent pigeon rape I witnessed last month.
It was so cool. We don’t know where the parents stay at night, but it’s not here. But they come back and hang out during the day. This afternoon, we saw the pigeon foreplay that we’d read about, where it looksd like they’re deep-throat kissing. Then after a while, Little Pidgee sort of crouched down while Big Pidgee did this little circular dance around her and then Wham! Jumped her. The sex part lasted about a second. we thought “Aha! That clinches it, Big Pidgee is definitely the male and Little Pidgee the female.” But wait a minute. They repeated the crouching and dance, only this time it was Big Pidgee crouching and Little Pidgee doing the circular dance and Wham! On top of Big Pidgee. So now we’re thoroughly confused. 
Does anyone know anything about this?
But it was neat to watch.
Squabs are 30 days old today (Saturday), too. 
(I feel like I’m becoming the Bird Man of Bangkok.)
Info about pigeons
Pigeons doin’ it
An obligatory YouTube link
None of the above mention relative size of male and female though. I did some other looking around and it seems size isn’t always an indicator for gender.
Thanks! Our birds were a bit different from the video in that the pigeon on the bottom remained crouched down and stationery, while the one on top danced a full circle around the other before hopping on. We’re still a bit confused about why one was on the top in the first go, then the other was on the top for the second go. Wouldn’t the male always be on top?
Here are a couple more photos, taken from inside, so please excuse the dirty window:
Yesterday morning (Saturday morning) is here. The squabs are 30 days old. From left to right is Big Pidgee, Little Pidgee, Snowy and Blackie. (Snowy’s not quite as white as we thought she’d turn out, so Slushee might be a better name.)
And here is this morning. Now a full month old, 31 days since they hatched on May 29. The same order left to right. Big and Little Pidgee always look cute cuddled together.
You can’t tell it from these photos since the squabs are more in the foreground, but they’re still quite a bit smaller than the parents.
We gave the balcony a good cleaning today. And thanks for the tip about ammonia-based window cleaner; that did work well. Both parents were away, so I went out and moved all of the pots to the other side of the balcony, except for the one little tree we have tied to the rail (it used to tip over in high winds). The squabs stayed on the dirt of that while I cleaned all around it, moving it over a little bit in the process to clean around there. They seemed quite worried about what was going on but were trapped. Couldn’t fly away. Except in the middle of it, Blackie actually flew across to the flowerpot that I’d moved to the other side of the balcony, the one they were hatched in and sleep in at night! That’s the first time we’ve seen either one fly. Snowy seemed to want to but couldn’t make herself do it. Then Blackie flew back across to the potted tree again. Back and forth a couple more times, too. Not sure if he was doing it because I was freaking him out or because he thought it neat that he could fly. I also could not resist giving them both a little tickle, but they seem not to like to be touched at all, so I kept it to a minimum.
At one point, Little Pidgy showed up and stayed on a window frame one floor up and watched me. I could hear her making little worried noises, probably thinking I was out there murdering her children. She came flying to the rail at one point, then flew back without really landing. My wife said it looked like she may have been trying to scare me away. Finished up and put everything back. Blackie’s not tried to fly again yet.
All four are out there now, and the parents just had sex again. Definitely Big Pidgee on top.
Haha! They just tried to have sex again, but the squabs kept running up to them wanting to be fed. They finally flew away, I guess for the night. I wonder where they stay at night.
You know, that pigeon info I found said they can breed all year round. I think BP and LP are getting ready for Round #2.
Yes, and we’re hoping the current batch moves away before the next one comes along. 
My wife’s veterinarian friend said pigeons weren’t her specialty but that yes, they probably would indeed build their new nest on the floor if we did remove the rectangular flower box. As long as the little ones move on and find a mate and their own place, we can live with he pigeons.
Update: Big and Little Pidgee are both still staying somewhere else at night but hanging around here during the day. And as reported, they’ve been having sex lately. But today (technically yesterday, since it’s after midnight), I noticed something new. Little Pidgee stays hunkered down in her rectangular flower box while Big Pidgee, I swear, looks like he’s standing guard on the floor outside of the box. And a couple of times, Little Pidgee moved back into the flowerpot, and then Big Pidgee would stand perched on the side of it, again looking like he was standing guard. When I tried to take a photo of that, they moved away. But I think the new eggs are coming, and Big Pidgee is acting the pigeon husband.
The squabs are 32 days old (33 days old in the morning). Blackie’s not tried to fly again since the balcony cleaning on Sunday. The dirt around that one potted tree has become their daytime living room, where they just hang out. When nighttime falls, they return to the flowerpot, which seems to hold connotations of safety for them, and sleep there. We’ll miss them, but we hope they leave for their own life before the new eggs come.
This has all been very interesting for us to watch. When they were sitting on the eggs, and then later after the eggs hatched, the parents never spent time together, and when it came time to switch shifts, they barely ackowledged each other. Then after the squabs were a couple of weeks old, they stopped staying with them full-time, instead just coming here to feed them. Then sometime last week, the parents starting hanging out here together, but only in the daytime. The pigeon sex has been fascinating to watch, although we still don’t understand why Little Pidgee got on top that one time. We have a newfound respect for pigeons and their ways.
Ironically, birds are on the list of forbidden pets for our building. No dogs, no cats, no birds allowed. Fish and maybe hamsters are okay. I guess they figure birds may be too loud, dunno. Bit here we have a whole family of birds who have moved onto our balcony, with more on the way probably, and the building management can’t really fault us for it. 
Update: The wife looked out early this morning (Wednesday morning), and Blackie was gone! Only Snowy was out there, and the parents had not showed up yet. Snowy was looking decidedly nervous out there all by herself, all alone for the first time! I looked over the balcony rail just in case, but no, no little pigeon body below. They’d both been asleep in the flowerpot late last night.
Then later Blackie returned. He’s been having fun trying out this new flying ability of his. The parents eventually did show up, but when I went out to change their water and wash the balcony down, they flew over to the neighboring window frames, followed by Blackie. I took some photos of the three of them over there and will upload them this week. Poor Snowy just can’t bring herself to fly yet, but she’ll get there.
So, at 34 days old, Blackie flew away from the balcony for the first time (remember that he flew across the balcony at 31 days), but Snowy’s not tried it yet that we can see.
How exciting! They grow up and leave home so fast. :sniff:
The whole family is out there now. Big Pidgee has really been playing the protective husband, too, like he knows Little Pidgee has eggs. We had some high winds and rain yesterday, and Big Pidgee was all attentive, looking worried that Little Pidgee might not be okay.