New Pictures! :-)

Above: Whisper and Creamsicle's beautiful baby, just fledged yesterday! :-) Looks like it'll be a pied fawn. (Won't be up for adoption; sorry.)



Above: Sylvester and Tweety, the two boys of Tangerine and Echo. Their adult coloring is coming in. :-)



Above: Frostie and Streak's family, 5 babies total. Couldn't get them all in the same photo. :-)



Above: Frostie and Streak's family again, minus one that didn't make it into the photo. :-)



Above: Dove youngster. I believe it's a male. :-)

Another Fledgling! :-)

Whisper and Creamsicle's baby fledged today! It is absolutely beautiful ... one of the prettiest babies we've had. I'll get a photo soon. :-)

Graduation Day! :-)

Whisper and Echo's two youngsters just graduated to their own cage. Both are definitely males, and I've named them Sylvester and Tweety. :-) The dove youngster also graduated to its own cage this morning.

Update on Frostie and Streak's Babies

All five of Frostie and Streak's babies have fledged now, and I've removed their nest box so they won't be as tempted to start a new family until mom and dad get a well-earned vacation! ;-) Here are several photos. :-) The dad is the one with the orange cheeks, and the mom is the white one. I'm estimating that the three larger chicks will be weaned in 2 to 3 weeks, and the two smaller chicks about 1-1/2 to 2 weeks after that, just to be sure. Once weaned, some of them will be up for adoption. It's too soon to tell their genders at this point. :-)

Tangerine and Echo's Babies, And The Baby Dove

Above: Tangerine and Echo's babies on the swing (that's where they like to sleep). One is definitely male! The other is most likely male, too, but I'm not 100% positive yet.



Above: Tangerine and Echo's babies again, with Echo (dad) on the far right. The babies' beaks are starting to change from black to orange. I'm estimating that they'll be fully weaned within 7 days. :-)



Above: Baby dove, now old enough to be adopted. I'm not 100% sure of its gender yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say male. :-)



Above: Baby dove again.

I'm unable to get a photo of Whisper and Creamsicle's babies at this time. They're in the pre-fledging stage, and I can't disturb their nest box without taking a big risk of frightening them into fledging too soon. These two are particularly skittish. (Startled babies sometimes hurl themselves out of the nest box in an out-of-control panic, potentially injuring themselves.) I'll get updated photos as soon as I can. They're both doing fine. :-) Edited 11/22/11 to add: Lost one of the babies due to premature fledging, as I feared. :-( Stormy (cockatiel) accidentally startled it, and it panicked, injuring itself on the cage bars. We tried our best, but there was nothing we could do to save it. Sigh. :-(

Canary Eggs

I candled the four canary eggs yesterday, and believe they're all infertile. There's one I'm not 100% positive about, so I've left them in the nest just in case, but in 10 days or so, I'll discard them so the hen won't keep wasting her time incubating them.

Whisper's two babies were banded yesterday ... one white and one turquoise. The larger chick was easy to band, but the smaller one was QUITE the little wiggleworm! While I was holding it, it was too busy begging for food to be still long enough for me to band it. LOL! I finally got it, though. Both chicks both have their eyes open now; one fully open and one just barely peeking. :-) The larger one looks like it'll be cream/fawn in color. Not sure about the little one yet, but I see some white pinfeathers starting to poke out.

Frostie and Streak's babies and Tangerine and Echo's babies should be up for adoption around the end of this month (give or take) or the beginning of December ... whenever they're fully weaned. There are 7 of them, total. The baby dove is almost weaned now. It'll be up for adoption soon as well. If you're interested in bringing one or more of these sweet and fascinating babies home with you, just let me know. :-)

Baby Pics! :-)

Above: Frostie and Streak and two of their five babies. :-) Left to right is a baby, Streak (dad), Frostie (mom), and a baby.



Above: Frostie and Streak's baby #3. The other two haven't fledged yet, but will very soon. :-)



Above: Tangerine and Echo's youngsters. Left to right is a baby, Echo (dad), a baby, and Tangerine (mom).



Above: Whisper's babies. :-)

Fledgling! :-)

One of Frostie and Streak's babies fledged today! It's normal gray pied with a white polka dot right in the middle of its forehead. Too cute! :-) I'll get a photo as soon as I can. It's very skittish right now.

Smudge and Onyx

Well, phooey. Smudge and Onyx stopped feeding the babies, and when I found them, all but one had passed away. :-( This is fairly common for first-time parents, so it's not unexpected, but usually by the second time they've got things figured out. I was able to hand-feed the surviving baby once, but then it started refusing food from me. Once they've got their eyes open, they realize it's not another bird who's feeding them, and sometimes they won't accept food from a "stranger".

I've moved the surviving baby to Whisper's nest. Whisper has two babies of her own. They're a little younger/smaller, but it's the only other nest that's available with similar-sized babies. She had two dud eggs in the nest, so I removed one of them. She most likely thinks it hatched. She practically had a smile on her face when she saw "her" new child! :-) Although this is Whisper's first time being a foster parent, she took the baby right in and filled its little crop full. Yay! :-) The only small concern I still have is that the baby is a different color at this point than Whisper's biological children. It's still possible that she might reject it because it's different ... which is sad on several levels ... but so far, so good. :-) Edited 11/6/11 to add: It passed away. Apparently she stopped feeding it, or perhaps it began refusing food from her as well. I guess it just wasn't meant to be. :-(

The yellow canaries are still on eggs. I haven't candled them, but if they're viable, they should start hatching very soon.

Frostie and Streak's 5 babies are all doing well. So far they've done a great job in making sure even the littlest ones get fed. I wish I could've put Smudge and Onxy's abandoned baby in with them since Frostie is a wonderful foster mom, but I was afraid 6 babies would be too many, especially since the little survivor is smaller than the other nestlings.

I candled Shelly and Sunset's eggs yesterday. One is a definite dud, and the others either haven't been incubated long enough, or are infertile. Most likely they haven't been incubated long enough, based on the small size of the eggs' air pockets. (The older an egg is, the larger the air pocket gets as the egg gradually dries up.)

Never a dull moment, huh? :-)