Photo courtesy of www.palemale.com/
Octavia feeds the eyasses. One is upright these days and her whole head is visible. Two can be seen just right of One. See the bit of top of head fluff above the twigs and between them as well? As to a Three, only time and getting taller will reveal her if she's there.
Some hawkwatchers guessing by early feeding motions suggest that there might yet be a Three in there.
Stay tuned!
Photo by Francois Portmann /http://fotoportmann.com/birds/
One of Francois' beautiful nest cam shots of the Thompkins Square Hawk Nest. Mom not only sits the three eggs she also does a little interior decorating at the same time.
When we last saw Quicksilver the hormonal African Grey Parrot he had set himself up in the top section of the lower laundry cupboard. Grey's are cavity nesters and Silver is doing his best to attract a mate.
And I keep interfering. When I got him out of the cupboard and put him to bed last night, I took the cloth off the shelf and hid it.
Do understand I'm not being mean. Silver does not have a mate and the more hormonal and "nesty" he becomes, the more likely he is to be miserable, loose control, and dive bomb someone, i.e. me.
Therefore I am attempting to rid his areas of anything that could make things worse.
Chewing paper activates the problem so I'm placing towels under his play and food areas instead of the usual paper.
I also keep taking Silver out of the laundry room but can't keep him in his cage all day. Plus he is flighted because there are two cats in the house, and a periodic Basenji, all who are his buddies...but hey, one never knows when "play" might get weird and I don't want him to be a sitting duck.
I put him in his play area in the bow window with all sorts of goodies and toys. I start to do some work.
CRASH!!!! Tink! Thump!
Crapola...
A cap, bits of chewed toilet paper, a light bulb, silver polish and the Crash...no doubt the big aerosol can of Lysol.
Yup. Check out the top picture. The Lysol is prominently displayed on the center shelf...
Where it no longer is. Now the prominent display is a Grey Parrot. He's on a different shelf than he was yesterday.
I get him down on a stick, amidst much beak clicking and feather ruffling, and put him back in his play area.
Unfortunately the laundry room does not currently have a door.
A little later, though I'd not heard any crashes, I went to check on him anyway.
He was GONE. I hadn't heard any wings so he must have walked past me. Quite stealthy of him to have figured that out actually.
Alright how did he get the closed cupboard open? And the stick perch isn't long enough to get him. He doesn't look all that amiable actually.
See how ruffled up his neck feathers are and how he's crouched? He's not going to give up easily.
How did he get all the way up and into that cupboard? His wing span is wider than that and it isn't as if he has to practice flight niceties. He flies from one perch to another. His flying isn't the same as an outside bird who has learned all the tricks, finesse, and fine points of flying because it is a matter of survival.
In a previous picture the door is ever so slightly ajar. Did he climb the toilet paper or just chew on it for awhile? He may have gotten to that bottom shelf and then flapped or crawled his way up?
I come closer.
Silver looks down at the dryer, one of his favorite places to perch, and says "Want Up".
Why doesn't he just fly down there?
He looks at me and says, "Want UP!", more forcefully. The perch stick isn't going to reach. I'll have to climb up on the washer. What if he flies at my head again while I'm standing on the washer?
Silver cocks his head and makes a kissie noise at me. He's trying CHARM?
Then I realize he is nervous about flying out of the cupboard. The space is too narrow. I push the door open further.
WHOA!!!
Before I can even get the camera to my eye, I shoot blind, and Silver does a curve very close to my head and heads for the dryer.
Silver lands and says, "Want some dinner", so I pick him up and take him to where he wants to go. I close the cupboard. No problems at all. He eats dinner.
There are no more pictures because before long things got very wacky.
Silver ate and seemed perfectly happy talking away in his play area.
Eventually I realized that things had gotten quiet. I went on the hunt. Of course he was in the laundry room. This time he was hanging from his beak then he'd scuffle his feet up onto the handle and try to open the door of the cupboard with his beak. It wasn't working this time.
This is a frustrated parrot.
I got the perch stick and put it under his feet. He got on it and immediately launched himself at my head. I ducked and turned off the light in the laundry room. Not dark enough yet. He keeps swooping at me. Every feather on end. He's not biting or anything yet. Just bombing me.
Okay! THAT'S IT! I get the umbrella and put it up. Mistake. I've forgotten how much he hates umbrellas. He is really crazy now. He stands on his cage and screams he is so angry. But TA DA he is no longer flying at my head.
This is better...well sort of.
I keep the umbrella up, drag a chair over, go and get a blanket, hammer, and nails. This takes a lot of juggling and likely looked completely hilarious.
Wish I had video.
Here I am standing on a chair, in the doorway to the laundry room attempting to balance an umbrella on my shoulder to protect myself from hurtling parrots, while holding the blanket up to the molding, and pounding nails into it to cover the doorway while the parrot in question screams two feet away, at times interspersed with the sound of the smoke alarm, in abject frustration.
It took awhile but...
TA DA! I took down the umbrella. Silver quit screaming. Put the other goodies away and by the time I got back Silver was quietly standing on the top of his cage, that's his cage cover on the right of the photo. He looked at me and said softly, "Tired".
Poor guy, I'm sure he was. I didn't feel much like a spring daisy myself. But he got docilely on my hand on command and I put him in his cage to sleep.
I told him it was time to go to sleep and that he was pretty and very smart and he had pretty toes and that I loved him and he should have a good sleep, like I do every night.
And for the first time ever he said softly, "Love you", back.
We'll be keeping that doorway covered for a good while to come.
Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne
On April 24th I was in the living room when I heard a strange sort of scuffling sound coming from the laundry room.
Hmmmm.
I went in and... nothing.
Well not totally nothing as Silver is perched on the laundry that had just come out of the dryer. Not unusual. It feels warm and he likes that. But it doesn't cause a scuffling sound.
I check and there isn't anything with buttons under him as he has been known to give buttons a quick clip with his beak and watch them propel themselves off the clothing and into the wall or floor.
Ping!
That wasn't what I heard. Nope, it was a scuffle. Or something rubbing or scraping, maybe?
Wonder where Squirrel the cat is? I reconnoiter. Not stuck in the dryer....that's good.
Ah. Sleeping in his favorite chair.
Pyewacket? Nope, she's also asleep...on the trunk by the window.
I give up.
Fast forward to April 25th.
THUNK!!!
Geez.... Silver flies out of the laundry room and I go in.
There is a big bottle of liquid detergent behind the washer. How did that happen?
Who knows.
Now it is April 26th.
Tink! Whap. Whap. Again from the laundry room.
Okay this is it! SILVER. Where are you and what are you doing?
He looks at me with the expression....
Just sitting here on my perch by the play area...thinking.
Is it my imagination or does he look just a little on the guilty side?
Then he says, "Want some apple.", a bit too quickly.
I look around.
My, my two boxes of Swiffers have hit the washer from somewhere and disgorged their contents.
I look up.
AH HA! See the top right shelf? That's where the Swiffers used to be and if I'm not mistaken...
A Grey Someone has been up there moving things to the edge and pitching them out. Plus chewing plastic. Very bad.
I clear the shelf. Out go the wipes, the plastic and other miscellaneous objects and I fill it full of dust cloths, old clothes, you name it, and pack them in tight. That way when Silver flies up there he won't be able to get a purchase and therefore will leave it alone.
That's the theory anyway.
I'd be tempted to let him hang out there and have a cavity for"nesting" but the more "nesty" things he does the more hormonal he gets. Within 24 hours he'd likely be flying at anyone's head who walks through.
April 27th...
Silver! What are you doing in the cupboard?
That's the...Just try and get me out expression.
Silver gives me the binoc disdainful look. Sigh. Time for the stick.
No not to beat him with. A extremely hormonal parrot is not in his right mind. He will defend his cavity until you are dripping blood. Therefore in the corner of the laundry room is a long piece of PVC pipe. I take said pipe to hand and put it up in the cavity near Silver's feet.
As expected he puffs up his feathers, grabs the pipe with his feet, and bites it viciously. While he is doing this I bring him down on the pipe, walk to his cage, put him and the pipe in, he gets off the pipe, onto his perch, I pull out the pipe and I close the door.
He says, "I'm sorry." But I don't believe him all that much right now. And therefore he'll stay for ten minutes while I address finding something to put up there so he CAN'T GET IN anymore.
In from long time contributor Robin of Illinois...
The Red-tail Housebreaker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMyE96LelnE
Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne
Photo courtesy of
palemale.com
Pale Male always takes time to watch his eyasses with focus and interest. Though they will still be sleeping in a pile they will be getting more upright while being fed now.
I've always wondered how so large a nest and so large a bird as a Sandhill Crane could be first, hidden, and second, protected, while sitting on the nest.
The vagaries of how a camera creates an image of this particular bird and this particular kind of nest does not truly portray the amount of camouflage that is present in the real life situation. For whatever reason they blend far better to the naked eye than they appear to do here.
Also the female is utterly still though somehow manages to move her head to look at you when you have moved, without you seeing it happen in particular. Kind of amazing actually.
And why are these Cranes called Sandhill Cranes? Because that it where they position their nests, on a hill of sand and then go about bucking it up with grasses and reeds. In this case and others, the perimeter of the nest is protected by a moat of water. A moat which some predators would have to swim. It is conceivable that Mom might just drown some of them on the way over as Swans have been known to do with swimming mammals.
Dad is also around to help in discouraging predators. And a Dad with wings wide used as a weapon and feet kicking is no small thing to overcome. I'd turn back.
I haven't been able to find a special name for a female or male crane but the young cranes have one. They are called colts.
And what is a group of Sandhills called? There is a selection on this one. They are called either a Herd of Sandhill Cranes or a Siege of Sandhill Cranes.
Both rather nice, I think.
Now we just have to come up with sex identifying handles for a male and female Sandhill Crane.
Any ideas?
Happy Hawking!
Donegal Browne
