26 May, 2004
Day 36
In the last day or two Sherbet has begun to fly more and more confidently.
She also lets us handle her and, we think, thinks we are part of her family.
A few of her landings were entertaining. She landed on our thin TV antenna and
promptly spun around so that she was hanging upside down. She stayed that
way for a considerable amount of time. She was probably not sure that
she could take off from that position. The few times that she has appeared
to be stuck, we have eventually rescued her, but we let her contemplate
things for a half hour or so first. Sherbet is also carefully selecting
seeds and gravel from the food dishes and chewing on the greens we provide.
She is still accepting food from her parents (mostly Meringue -- dad) as well.
Pickle appears at the door of the nest box frequently. He (we think he is a
he--his cere looks more transparent and it is not white around the nostrils,
he is also more vocal than Sherbet). He still hasn't come out on his though
we handle him frequently. There are moments when we hear vigorous flapping
in the nest box and debris comes shooting out of the door. Furthermore,
he was being held yesterday and managed to lift his body into the air while
flapping. He remained attached by pinching a fold of skin (not too painfully)
with his beak.
Finally, Kiwi is, we think, going to lay more eggs. We observed her yesterday
hauling wood chips and other bits out of the nest box. The mating instinct
is still strong between Kiwi and Meringue. We want to take the nest box away
soon, but have to wait for Pickle to come out on his own. We can also separate
the birds by sex as we have two cages.
Sherbet
Pickle