Sunday afternoon Oscar and Emmy are eight and seven days old now, respectively. Growing quickly. Oscar’s going to be big. Emmy looks somewhat smaller,but she’s growing too. I think we’ve called the sexes right this time. The feather shafts are only just starting to come out, but it looks like Emmy will be a white one, Oscar a dark mix. I think we’ll have to transfer them to the flower box next weekend.
Photos soon.
We are just short of six years now in what I think is the longest continuously running thread on the Dope.
There needs to be some sort of pidgee party!
We had a pair of baby doves visit the balcony today. Cute little buggers. They wandered around and checked us out real good before eventually flying away. Must have been siblings. One was a bit larger than the other but still tiny.
Thursday morning and the squabs are 11 and 12 days old. Growing big, growing quickly. This weekend, we’ll transfer them to the flower box. They’re going to be pretty too – it’s apparent that Emmy will be mostly white, while Oscar will have mottled markings a la Tony or Pete.
The parents are getting frisky again too. We’ve not seen them have actual sex yet, but The Bully will stand in the flower box and coo for Ladyboy. After a while, she’ll respond by getting into the box with him, and the two will bend down and sort of “hug.” We expect sex soon.
Ladyboy seems fully recovered from whatever was ailing her before. And she seems more protective of these squabs than she has been of any others. We’re more convinced than ever now that she knew the previous pair of eggs were duds and she was in mourning. Maybe we’re just reading things into this, but it could be that’s making her more protective of this batch.
Ladyboy and The Bully are sex maniacs! Doing it in front of the kids!
Perverts.
Just past midnight Saturday night and the squabs are two weeks old this weekend – Oscar on Saturday and Emmy on Thursday. I transferred them to the flower box today, and while I think the move itself traumatized them, they seem to like the extra room now. The parents, as usual, were not happy that I did this, but they’ll get over it.
The parents are acting very romantic now. “Hugging” and preening each other.
It’s Wednesday morning, and the squabs are 17 and 18 days old. On Monday morning I found a 15-day-old Emmy on the floor outside the flower box. Too young to have jumped on her own, she had obviously fallen out while flapping for a feeding. I put her back. Their feathers are coming in nicely, and they’re looking beautiful.
The parents are having lots of sex and reshaping the nest in the Living Room after I poured in fresh dirt and cleared out some of the shit-encrusted twigs. So more eggs are coming.
Also, Ladyboy has learned Dad’s trick of jumping up in the window to ask for food. She does it all the time now. Multiple times a day. But we feed them mostly at night, because too many outsiders have started coming around in the daytime. We’ve drastically cut back on daytime feedings again, keeping the curtains closed. Unfortunately this frequently cuts Henry and Geri out. Hopefully the situation will stabilize again, like it usually does.
Thursday night and … we have another egg! Plus the sex is still going fast and furious between Ladyboy and The Bully. I wonder what it feels like for Ladyboy to have The Bully on top of her squashing her down while she still has an egg inside her. The second egg is expected by Friday.
Meanwhile, the squabs are 18 and 19 days old. Both of them fell out of the flower box today. Still too young to jump out on their own, so it must have been in all the flapping around and excitement of a feeding.
Oops! I meant by Saturday.
Photos! :D:cool:
First we have Oscar and Emmy as eggs. That’s Mama on the other tree pot and Dad on the rail along with Spooky. That’s February 7.
On February 22, Oscar hatched. Here he is coming out butt first. And fully emerged, with Dad.
The next day, February 23, and little Emmy is with us, on the left with her day-old brother. And a closer view.
March 2 and we see eight-day-old Oscar and seven-day-old Emmy. Their feather shafts are emerging now.
March 7: The Sleepy Guys – Oscar is 13 days old, Emmy 12 days. And with Ladyboy, the mother.
The next day I transferred them to the flower box. Oscar is still sleepy. Then Emmy joins in the nap after the day’s trauma of being uprooted.
And two days ago, March 13, ages 19 and 18 days.
And you can see all the photos on one page here.
Now it’s Saturday afternoon and still just the one egg. We expect the second one sometime in the evening. The new pair will be … Jimmy and Jamie.
And we have the second egg! 
Ladyboy just laid in the past hour or so this afternoon (Saturday afternoon). ETA for new hatchings is March 30.
Meanwhile, Oscar and Emmy are standing for long periods and wandering up and the length of the flower box. They should be hopping out in the next few days. They’re 21 and 20 days old now.
Sunday morning, Oscar and Emmy are 22 and 21 days old, respectively, and they’re both out of the flower box and wandering around! They seem more comfortable walking around now than they did a few days ago when they had obviously just fallen out. The Bully has been cooing at them recently in an apparent bid to entice them out. We think they’re old enough now that they can get back into the box on their own.
Ladyboy seems now to have handed over all parenting responsibilities for these squabs to The Bully while she concentrates on the new clutch of eggs.
Great photos, and I love the new names. Happy to see you’re still at it with the pidgees!
Oscar’s really big now too, clearly a male. He grunts and squeals in terror when he sees my hand coming in for a pet or to pick him up. Emmy is more laid back.
Wednesday night and Oscar and Emmy are 25 and 24 days old, my favorite age level for a squab. Now they’re running around acting all cute but cannot fly yet. They do perform “helicopters” – stand there and flap their wings vigorously.
Worryingly, Ladyboy started acting strange again tonight. Lay down and lounged on the floor. Seemed confused. The Bully took over on the eggs. Then she snapped out of it and took over on the eggs again. She’s been fine eevr since that last stretch, even all day today and after dark. Just suddenly started acting odd about 8:30pm. Hope the eggs are okay, as well as she herself.
Friday morning and whatever came over Ladyboy the other night seems to have been a fluke. She’s been fine ever since.
The wife mentioned last night that she’s noticed Ladyboy and The Bully have become more comfortable with us. And it’s true. They are still very wary of us but now don’t run away quite so far when we lean out to pour some food for them. Both will regularly stay on the eggs while I scoot the Living Room over while cleaning the balcony and when I scoot it back. Before these latest squabs left the nest, The Bully would pull back a little but otherwise stay in place when I reached in the nest to give them a little tickle.
And Oscar and Emmy are 27 and 26 days old. Running around and will swamp Dad to demand a feeding. They should be flying sometime next week.
It’s almost 10 months now that this couple have been living with us. They’re still pikers when it comes to nest building, especially compared with the original couple out there, but they do try.
EDIT: I just noticed this thread has topped 100,000 views. 
I guess I never looked for the number of views, but I figured it would have topped that a long time ago.
I have lost track. Not counting the two dud eggs, how many pairs of squabs have these two had?
There were three dud eggs, because the egg that would have been Pete’s sibling never hatched. So not counting the three, there have been 11 – Charlie and Mandie; Kenny and Laurie; Pete; Tony and Pam; Pumpkin and Popcorn; and the current squabs Oscar and Emmy. And there are two more eggs out there right now, Jimmy and Jamie, so that will make 13 in the 10 months they’ve lived here.
And we know this pair have been mates a lot longer, a couple of years longer at least, living somewhere else but coming to visit. We’ll never know what made them up and move here. Maybe their old place was destroyed somehow. But they’ve had lots of squabs before too.
I wasn’t home earlier tonight, but the wife tells me Ladyboy’s learned a new begging trick. She’s started to fly back and forth on the top rail of the balcony, from left to right and back again, peering in intently each time to see if she can see us. I guess it’s to attract our attention in case we don’t see her jump up into the window a la Henry, her father. Clever girl.