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Saturday, June 17, 2006
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Bird Cuteness
This is our little brown Parking Lot Finch that adopted us a couple of weeks ago. If you missed it, I was at an outdoor festival and Lorelei was sitting under the eaves of a building when this little baby bird, most of his feathers still sheathed and prickly, hopped up into her lap and stayed there. He was very weak and cold, but after holding him and warming up all day and funneling sugar water into his mouth he was acting more lively. We tried to give him back to momma bird, but she chose to attack him instead so he came home with us. Since then, he's been living on soaked cat and dog food, mashed egg mixed with water into a soupy mush, and mealworms and earthworms as we get them. He's quite healthy now and despite the fact that it looked like his wing was broken for a while, it now seems fine and he actually can fly around when he chooses to. Actually, a week ago I set him out on the back deck to see if he would do just that, and he did. He flew up into the trees and started being a real bird. I went to take a shower, came back out later and chirped for him. He answered me, then he flew down to a low shrub and let me pick him back up, begging for food. Oh, well.
Right now he's sitting in the doorway of his cage, fluttering his wings and chirpling insistently, arguing that he's starving to death, although I know better. The huge bulge in his gizzard area from the recent meal of mashed egg is giving him away. Chicken is terribly jealous, of course - he's sure that we're giving New Bird goodies that he's not getting, so every chance he gets he climbs into New Bird's cage and starts rooting around, looking for the goodies. I've offered to feed him some dog food mush too, but he just looks insulted, kind of like when the girls catch me eating chocolate and I try to tell them I'm eating liver on toast instead. Today he caved in, though. I was feeding New Bird (tentatively named Darwin) some mashed egg and Chicken kept trying to force his way into the cage to see what was going on. Finally I let him, and he actually came over and started nibbling the egg from my fingers - something he's never done since he's been a "big boy" bird. Yes, he was hand-fed as a baby. But he's a big Macho Nacho now and has always refused to take food from anyone's hand since. You can set it down and he'll eat it, but not from the hand, no way. Well today he was doing it. I had two birds, one a baby and one just acting like one, both fluttering their wings and chortling and stuffing their faces with egg while big yellow crusts formed all around their beaks. New Bird was even overstuffing himself. Normally he eats until his gizzard is distended, then he excuses himself and goes to cuddle in his nest box until everything processes through. But today, with competition from Chicken, he kept stuffing until I could see that his entire esophagus was packed to the hilt and I refused to give them anymore. I put the remainder away, but he still sits in the door of his cage, complaining that he's not had enough. Stinker.
Just now had to take a break and remove Chicken from New Bird's cage once again. He thinks there are goodies hidden in the nesting box, and he was in there shredding everything looking for the treats. I moved him back to his own cage and told him "No". He puffed out his cheek feathers at me, pouting.
This morning, I was late getting up. I could hear New Bird chirpling for breakfast, but the girls were ignoring him so I finally dragged myself out of bed. As I passed his cage on the way to the kitchen, I chirped at him to let him know that, yes, food was coming. His door was open, and he flew out of the cage and followed me into the kitchen, where he attached himself to the back of my shirt and wouldn't let go. Cute. :)
I need to get MisterX to take a video of him/the two of them at feeding time. It's precious.
5:26:23 PM 
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© Copyright
2006
Melanie Teegarden.
Last update:
6/29/2006; 3:36:15 PM.
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