Thanks for the info, but I’m afraid we have no grains. We do almost no cooking. Besides having little time for it, picking up a Thai meal in the market or even having it delivered to our door costs only a dollar or three each, so we never bother. I certainly didn’t marry the wife for her cooking.
But now the crisis, if there was one, is over. About 6:30am now, and Snowy is back to her old self. She was running around the balcony and just watched Blackie fly off a little while ago. Then she stood on the edge and kept craning her neck everywhere. Kept doing that, looked like she was just about to fly. Then she hopped down and went back to her “living room,” which is the dirt in the potted tree. Bright and lively this morning. Little Pidgee is still on the eggs, and now the box is littered with my unsuccessful attempt to get Snowy to eat: two bits of banana and a bunch of cracker crumbs. The cracker bits that fell on the ground have proven a boon to the ants, though (will pour water out there soon). I’ll clean those in the flower box out tomorrow (Sunday), as the wife and I must leave early today and probably won’t be back until after dark.
But Snowy is back to normal. I think she was just one tired little birdee last night. Our tropical storms are routinely heavy this time of year, and I suspect she got caught in that one last night. I’ll not try to feed her or the others again, because cute as they are, we want to encourage them to go off and find their own food (and lives). My sorry attempt last night was an emergency.
Odd, though, this ongoing reluctance of hers to fly. Before and this morning. Blackie thinks nothing now of zipping off somewhere.
Yay! Snowy has flown again! Not very far, only to the window by our dining area. She’s sitting right now on the lower window frame. I took some pictures from the balcony; and then from inside, of her through the window. Unlike the parents, she’s much less skittish about humans, at least about my wife and me.
She keeps staring all around like she’s looking for something. Maybe her brother? Looking, looking, peering intently. We’re starting to wonder if she’s a half-wit. I wonder what she was doing during her 24-28 hours away.
Will post some more photos tomorrow. We’ve got to get out of here soon.
Itt IS her brother she keeps searching all around for. He came back yesterday and sat with her on the window frame, and she stopped looking around after that! She really loves her brother, follows him all around on the balcony. Blackie’s off somewhere no doubt learning to be a pigeon now, but Snowy is perched on the edge of the potted tree. At least she’ll fly over to the window frames from time to time. She’s coming along. Big Pidgee is taking his shift sitting on the eggs now; Little Pidgee will be back this evening. It’s very cute at night when the two squabs are snuggled up close to Mama in the rectangular box.
When we returned home last night, the cracker crumbs seemed to have been significantly rearranged and even reduced in number, so I guess they finally ate some. I removed the pieces of banana yesteday morning before we left, and it was funny, but Little Pidgee actually seemed to slap my hand! We think she was trying to flap her wings and prepare to escape, but her right side was up against the side of the box and a wall, so only the left wing could stretch out. It really looked like she thought I was coming for her eggs and slapped my hand accordingly each time I reached for a banana piece.
NEW PHOTOS:
Here you can see, from top to bottom, Little Pidgee, Big Pidgee and Blackie, last Wednesday. Blackie is 34 days old. Again, you can see our next-door mansion (one wing of it anyway) and part of the grounds. Those grounds are teeming with bird life, and there are no cats or dogs to create a disturbance, so we figure this is probably where the parents go whenever they stay away at night.
Here is Snowy, left and Little Pidgee in the rectangular flower box last Thursday. Little Pidgee is sitting on the egg she laid the day before. Snowy is 5 weeks old. That evening is when she disappeared for 24 hours plus.
Here is Big Pidgee on the left, guarding Little Pidgee on the right in the rectangular flower box last Friday. Not really visible here is Blackie, who if you blow the photo up you might see behind the little Thai house balanced between the two potted trees. Big Pidgee is crouched down in this photo, but he was mostly standing at attention like a guard that day. We now know he did this because Little Pidgee was about to lay the second egg. At the time, I thought it strange that Little Pidgee broke the shift routine to return in the daytime, but she needed to lay that other egg. I especially like this photo because you can see the beautiful Chinese-Thai temple in the background that we have a clear view of from most of out unit. Always nice to look at, it was one of the main selling points for us to buy this place; we knew no one was going to tear it down and put up another ugly building.
Here is Little Pidgee and one egg, last Friday. She laid the second one later that day.
Here is Snowy yesterday, the day after she returned from her disappearance. Outside our dinig-area window. Looking for her Blackie and contemplating life. 37 days old.
Here is Snowy on the same ledge, taken from inside.
The squabs are 41 days old today (Wednesday). Tomorrow makes 6 weeks. Although they still spend a lot of time lounging around on nearby window frames, they’ve begun staying away for a large portion of the day. Snowy, too. But they still come back to sleep at night with Mama in the rectangular flower box. Still, we’re taking this as a positive development.
Snowy is flying more but has botched a couple of landings so badly that we’re seriously wondering if she has a vision problem. I suppose that could explain why she was so slow to take to flying compared with her sibling.
Snowy has an odd habit at night, too, of sleeping with her feathers puffed out and standing on one leg with the other one tucked up like a stork. That always cracks us up.
I can’t believe I’m saying this about pigeons, but they are absolutely adorable!
Thanks for the new pictures and the continued updates. If Snowy’s having trouble seeing, I wonder if the pigeon people you found would consider adopting her and keeping her safe, or maybe know of someone who would?
I’m afraid we don’t know any actual pigeon people. The vet my wife asked for information freely admits she doesn’t like pigeons. And our neighbor who had squabs appaently was glad to see them go and chased the parents away once the little ones were grown. Snowy does get around okay and is apparently able to find food, so I’m sure she’ll do fine. Funny, though, but just since I wrote my last post, she tried to land on a balcony rail and fell off! I looked and she landed safely on a window frame below. Blackie can now fly with the best of them, but Snowy is still a bit awkward.
Not much happening on the pigeon front. Blackie will stop by occasionally, but overall he spends his time elsewhere now, even sleeping somewhere else at night. Snowy stays away all day but still returns at night to sleep next to Mama in the rectangular flower box, still making the odd comically bad landing. 45 days old. Still a little smaller than a fully adult pigeon.
Darn, those three above I had mislabelled on the page as Little Pidgee. They correctly read Snowy now.
I took some more shots today that I’ll upload this week. 46 days old, and they’re close to adult size now. Snowy is big. Blackie’s out there for the first time in a couple of days.
And in what we take to be a positive development, a stranger pigeon landed on the balcony the other day, and Big Pidgee ran over and chased it away! Good. Protecting the territory, I guess.
The squabs are 48 days old now – six weeks tomorrow – but a problem has developed. After staying away a couple of nights, Blackie has taken to returning at night to sleep, and Snowy is still sleeping here at night. But Blackie still keeps trying to get the parents to feed him! The squabs are very healthy-looking, so they’re obviously finding their own food now in the daytime, but Blackie keeps trying to force his beak into Little Pidgee’s mouth several times at night. Little Pidgee becomes angry, and a fight breaks out! Snowy will sometimes try it, too, but seems to be following Blackie’s lead the few times she has tried it. They’ve also ambushed the father in the daytime a couple of times and tried to get him to feed them.
We’ve seen both parents start whooping butt on the squabs – especially Blackie as the main instigator – leaving the eggs to go slap the squabs away. With the eggs due to hatch in a few days, we’re a little concerned about the old squabs trying to muscle in when the parents try to feed the new batch. My wife wants to chase the old squabs away – they look almost fully grown – but I’ve pointed out to her that we’d have to be on the balcony full-time. My feeling is the parents will be able to handle it themselves. I mean, if they were living in a tree somewhere, they’d be going through this without any humans watching, so this must occur. Does anyone know about if the parents will finally chase the older squabs away?
Well, we’ve already seen Big Pidgee chase away one stranger pigeon that landed the other day. I’m not sure they’ll tolerate the squabs’ mates; they don’t seem too fond of the squabs now.
Well, they’re communal creatures, so my guess is “no, they’re not going to get chased away.” As they grow older they’ll probably quit pestering their parents so much, and maybe leave on their own, but they’re also liable to still hang out and maybe build their own nests. I mean, they’ll work out their personal space issues, but they could probably cram a few more nests on your patio.
But we mainly want the family squabbling to stop. We don’t want to have to call the pigeon police. It’s all Blackie’s doing, too. Snowy is sweet and innocent when her brother is not goading her.
Got up this morning (Sunday) to find at least one egg hatched and a glimpse of a fresh squab moving around beneath Little Pidgee. Can’t see the other egg. We went to bed at 11pm last night, so chances are the squab emerged after midnight. It looks CLEAN, as yet unsmeared by shit. A nicy fluffy yellow with a black spot or two on the top of its head.
I apologize for the blurriness of this photo, but I want to post it while it’s still fresh, and who knows when they’ll give us a chance to take another shot. I give you the world’s newest pigeon and its mother here.
The other two squabs have finally left us. Smoky was last seen on Thursday at 49 days old, or 7 weeks; Blackie the next day at 50 days old. Blackie especially kept getting into fights with the parents, so while not shooing him away, we did act like we wanted to pick him up, which he did not like and would fly away. Between a couple of times of that and the fights with his parents, I guess he finally took off. So I guess after 7 weeks, you can expect your pigeon squabs to be gone.
I was preparing to post some other photos that I’ve been meaning to when the website hosting them shut down for some minor upgrades, so I’ll have to post them later.
EDIT UPDATE: As I was preparing the above, the Switch occurred, and we could see that the other egg had still not hatched. It was laid two days after the first one. The first one has hatched after 18 days. We had a clear view of the new squab when Mama got up to leave, and it is so cute. Big Pidgee looked a little surprised to find it, but he’s now hunkered down on it and the other egg.
Okay, the website hosting our photos is back up now. Below are the final photos of Blackie and Snowy, who have now ventured out into the world:
Here is Blackie and Snowy two weeks ago on Sunday, July 6, at 38 days old.
Here is the same day after a balcony cleaning. That’s Little Pidgee sitting on her new eggs.
Here and here is Snowy, left, 46 days old, and father Big Pidgee on July 14.
Here is Blackie and Snowy on July 14 at 46 days old, contemplating pushing off into the world.
We’ve been speculating that the first batch the parents had here may have been their first, period. They may be very young themselves, and it’s neat to think this may be their first home together.
I’ll post photos of the new squabs as we get them.
The second egg hatched overnight, and we now have two healthy new squabs!
The new one looks distinct from its sibling. The first one is a yellow fuzzball with a couple of small but distinct black marks on its head. The new one has no black marks but seems to have a reddish color on parts of the body; or maybe I’m just seeing some pink flesh through the yellow fuzz. I can see the pair only sporadically. The new one has been clear to view only once today (Monday), during the Switch of the parents’ shifts.
We can see them more clearly overall this time around, though, because the previous flowerpot was so deep as to obscure the view of the squabs more. The first squab is distinctly larger than the second one, too. That could be because the second egg hatched 24 hours later. The first batch hatched more closely together.
Also, their eyes don’t seem quite developed yet. I don’t recall noticing that with the first batch, again probably because the depth of the old flowerpot prevented a clear view of the first batch of squabs. Presumably this new batch’s eyes will be open in a day or two.
Here are some new photos I took this morning:
Here you can see both of the new squabs, one on either side of the large open eggshell.
Here Little Pidgee shifted to cover the newer one, in the process exposing the older one more. You can clearly see it’s beak and part of where the eye is (or will be).
Here is a close-up of mother and child. You can see the “eye” more clearly. (It looks like the squab is inside the small piece of eggshell, but no, the shell is actually in front of the squab.)
Another close-up here. Again, that’s a different squab on either side of the large open eggshell.
Sam, thanks so much for the continuing saga! I really do appreciate it, the pictures are great. I think I’m going to email a fellow Audubon Society member and send him a link to this thread. He likes to send out emails about his birding expeditions.
