Okay, here’s the first video of Charlie. It’s still maybe being processed, so I don’t know if that will affect the link later on. lasts about a minute. The sound of wings you hear at one point is The Bully trying to scare me away. He did not like me screwing around near Charlie.
Looked outside again, and I saw Mandie’s butt was still stuck inside the egg. She kept wiggling around to get out. Finally got out. So she must have hatched tonight like we saw.
And now here is the second video of Charlie. This one’s about two minutes long, and he’s a little more animated here. You can also see The Bully, still freaking out. After this video, I relented and pulled back inside, letting him resume his place on the nest. Ah well, if they’re going to be laying their eggs here, they’ll just have to expect to put up with this, heh. 
And with that, I’m off to bed soon. It’s about 2am here.
Thank you so much for going to all this trouble!
It’s great to have squabs again after so long. Maybe this will encourage the parents to stay and do it again.
SO ugly cute!
Happy Anniversary!
You’re all very welcome. “Ugly cute” about describes it. Charlie’s little bald patch tight on top of his head is funny. I gave it a little tickle yesterday.
It’ll be maybe 12-14 days before they start resembling a proper pidgee. I remember the Jabba the Hutt phase at about 10 days.
Great pictures and videos. Thank you. They really are so ugly they are cute. How are the other pigeons handling the nursery? Do Ladyboy and The Bully have issues with others feeding near the squabs?
Have you seen the squirrel again? I hope you will be able to watch that family, too. 
We saw the squirrel again briefly yesterday but not today. He seems to have finished building his nest, so maybe he’s just hanging out in it now. We’ll keep watch.
We’re trying to restrict the feedings to the Inner Circle, and feedings have gone down. Henry and Geri are not happy about that, but they still get some. We’ll put their pile away from the tree pots. Everyone is leaving the squabs alone. There really seems to be some instinct keeping them from screwing around with a nesting family, or at least that’s how it looks.
A couple more photos from today (Tuesday), and a short video.
Here is father The Bully with Charlie and Mandie. They’re about 24 and 12 hours old, respectively. And then The Bully decided to go farther from me, so here are the siblings alone. In both of those, you can see a piece of I think it must be Mandie’s shell outside the living room, in the upper left of the picture.
We don’t know if the parents kicked the eggshells out on purpose, or if the shells just stuck to the birds. I know back when Little Pidgee had that one egg that turned out to be sterile four years ago, she kept taking it out of the nest on purpose. We put it back once or twice before we understood what was happening. But we didn’t clear out the shells this time. The parents did that, on purpose or otherwise.
And a short, 35-second video of siblings Charlie and Mandie together. Or there’s supposed to be a video. It seems to have gotten stuck during processing. If it’s not working yet, check back later. Not sure but Mandie may be the closer one. Notice the little wing movements. The wife likes to call the wings when they’re this size “angel wings.” 
The photos and video were this morning, and already they seem a bit bigger. And they’re wiggling around more. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to log in these next couple of days, as I’ll be rather busy, but I’ll still take some photos to chart their progress. Might take a few days to get them posted.
Okay, that video is working now. The tapping sound you hear toward the end is Henry on the top rail, chasing after a gray or Sammy pidgee, I forget which.
EDIT: And the chirping you hear is from nearby birds, not the squabs. Pigeons don’t chirp.
I was watching the videos and a co-worker came over and asked what I was “awwwing” about. Now he thinks I’m even more weird than he thought.
Congratulations, Grandpa! And best wishes to the happy new family. Great pics and vids, too. The “nest” looks pretty uncomfortable; do regular pigeon nests look more comfortable or is this what they’re supposed to be like?
Keep up the great pidgie work.
No, this we believe was just an impromptu nest. We think Ladyboy got stuck here due to the rain at a time when she just had to drop her egg. That’s our theory anyway. But they’ve have their own nest somewhere else. You can see a few twigs in there, which seems to have been a half-hearted attempt to make something after the fact. Back in the days of Big Pidgee and Little Pidgee, they would construct quite a sturdy structure, but this was their main home.
We tried to move the eggs before, but Ladyboy clearly was not happy about that. Once the squabs get bigger, we’ll try moving them to the roomier flower box. And bigger they are growing. Four days old now and healthy. Eyes should open in another couple of days. Right now if I touch them, they think it’s a parent bringing food, heh.
Oops! I meant three days old now. :o Keep forgetting which day it is.
Something rather amazing happened yesterday (Friday). After doing some cleaning out on the balcony, which always freaks the parents out, I picked up a large piece of eggshell that had been lying on the floor all week since the hatchings and put it in the other tree pot. Just for decoration. Not the living room with the squabs, but the other tree pot. It was most of an entire shell, a rather large piece. Immediately after I came back inside, father The Bully hopped into the tree pot, picked up the shell with his beak, hopped over to onto a balcony rail, leaned out a bit and dropped it over the side! It bounced once on the concrete skirting and over it went. The shell had not bothered him at all lying on the floor, but he clearly wanted it gone once I had placed it on the earth in the neighboring tree pot. Other, smaller pieces remain, but this one was large enough to be immediately recognizable as an egg. Not sure why that would bother him, but it probably answers the question of whether they got rid of the other shells on purpose.
The squabs’ pinkish skin color is turning black, which is normal. Getting BIG now. The parents can no longer cover them entirely. Eyes not open yet.
More pictures to come.
Monday morning and Charlie and Mandie are a week old. They opened their eyes over the weekend and can now see us. I keep petting them a little from time to time to see if they’ll get used to me. Usually at about 10 days is when they start looking like little Jabba the Hutts as they start filling out. At that time they’ll also start trying to stand and snap at any hand that comes near, although it only tickles and doesn’t hurt.
More pictures and videos soon.
We resently had another pidgee start stopping by too that was missing a tail. Then we saw it was missing the ends of both wings. It looks like something sliced off the tail and wing ends in one go, right along a straight line across where the wings pass the tail. It still can fly though and does not seem to be harmed. Looks like it had a close shave.
Late Wednesday night and Charlie and Mandie are nine days old. Healthy little guys, developing like normal. Getting bigger. The quills are starting to form, and they’re much whiter on Charlie than on Mandie. We think he’s going to be white, if not both of them. Mandie especially can scoot around by pushing her legs. We think they’ll start making serious attempts to stand in the next day or two.
I handle them every day, much to the annoyance of the parents. I’ve only picked them up once, but I’ll rub their little breasts or the top of their heads. They seem to like it between the eyes, at which time one of them, I think Mandie, thinks I’m trying to feed her and starts trying to poke through my fingers. I want to see if they get used enough to me that they won’t snap at me, which usually happens at about the time they start trying to stand. But they do seem to be a little startled when I first go near them, and I heard at least one of them “clacking” their bill just a little, usually the prelude to a snap. But they seem more accepting of me than previous squabs.
Ladyboy and The Bully are getting a little frisky again now too. The wife saw them kissing and preening each other today, but they didn’t have sex. Poor Henry is getting a little put out by all this.
The squirrel has completely disappeared after finishing his nest in the tree. Very strange.
Pictures soon, but meanwhile here’s a neat story about a pigeon that just flew from Japan to Canada.
Ah, they grow up so fast. Looking forward to pictures of the toddlers.
Can you see in the squirrel nest? It seems strange a mother would build the nest and abandon it. Hopefully she didn’t have her babies and then something happened to her.
No, can barely see the nest for the leaves. You have to know it’s there. Sort of a dark mass. I took a photo of it and will include it too. We thought maybe the squirrel was just hanging out in it now that it’s built, but no sightings at all since it finished. Or we assume it finished. It’s not out of the question that squirrel got eaten by a cat. Hope not. Do squirrels have a habit of building nests in multiple locations?
I did some research. It seems that in the summer spring-born juveniles practice building nests and adults often build temporary ones away from the main nest (sort of a vacation home :)). So that might be what you have. Too bad if it turns out you don’t get a family. Squirrels are fun to watch. I saw one the other day hanging upside down from a branch, just swinging back and forth like he didn’t have a care in the world.
New photos taken over the past week and a half:
7 days old here and here. Notice their wings are starting to take shape now. And the spine is forming. That hole in the head I guess is the ear after all; I keep thinking it’s the nostril and will move to the front. Was fooled before too. You can’t see it here, but their eyes are open by now.
The same day, this past Monday, I also took this photo of the squirrel tree. I’m afraid you can’t see the squirrel nest very easily at all, but it’s toward the top of the tree near the window handle. In the tree it’s on the right side of the middle and down a bit from the top. The squirrel tree is on our condominium’s side of the wall separating the properties. You can see the roof of the mansion on the far side of the yard. This is their backyard. From the top of our 36-story building, you can look down on the layout of the whole place, and they have a big fountain in the front yard and a couple of wings to the house. I’ll try to take a photo of that sometime. All I know is the place belongs to some sort of sugar tycoon, your typical wealthy Chinese-Thai businessman.
But pack to Charlie and Mandie:
8 days old. Getting some color in those wings. I believe that’s Charlie in the foreground. He’s definitely the bigger of the two. Maybe we’ve actually called the genders right this time!
9 days old. I think that’s Mandie on the right, and this is the first clear view of an eye in these photos.
And that brings us up to today at 10 days old, here and here. In that first one especially, you can really see the wings and quills coming along and the beaks extending.
I have a couple of videos I’m uploading to YouTube soon. Both are of the squabs at 2 days old, but one includes Ladyboy the mother.
Tonight I picked up the squabs, and the parents completely freaked out. Flew quickly over to the window frames. Ladyboy returned, but The Bully has disappeared. I guess he’ll come back in the morning. He keeps acting like a guard – been staying here at night over on the rails – but ran at the first sign of trouble. Ha! But I’ll stop picking up the squabs at night.
I think soon we’ll try transferring the squabs to the roomier flower box soon. Maybe wait until they start squealing for food, so the parents can be sure to find them this time! 
Okay, the videos are about ready. This one is loaded now: Charlie and Mandie at 2 days. You might see a shadow pass over toward the end; that’s the mother, Ladyboy.
I’m uploading the other one now, and it says it will take another couple hours but will be here when it’s finished. So keep checking. I took it about the same time as the other one, but this one has Mama in it. Giving me the evil eye too.