The whole notion of blogging is, as I understand it, to write even when there's not much to write about, since chronicling the slow spots is just as valid as hitting the high points.
We're between new batches of chicks now. After the Fluffbutts, there was an attempt to have another batch - tentatively the "Cuties" - in the nesting box, and at least one must have hatched since the parents carried food in there for several days. But seemingly they failed to thrive, perhaps since we were feeding relatively tough reconstituted (boiled) chinese dried mealworms rather than live ones, since our supply of live ones had dwindled during the covid lockdown. This has also coincided with a period of a month or so without heavy rain, which may have cut into the other sources of fresh bugs and worms and stuff out there.
So while last year between March and June we had 4 successful hatchings, which may have been too many, this year the birds seem to be on a slower pace. It could well be that there are already eggs laid in the tree next door, but I tend to doubt it... Birdlet is pretty much in vacation mode, taking a lot of baths and just not acting like anything was urgent.
Bird has been showing up a lot, and has taken to flying into the kitchen and turning loose with his full-volume shama territorial call, which is as loud as a very-loud smoke alarm on steroids. He unquestionably does it to shake us out of whatever we're doing to offer him mealworms, and it works every time.
Bird, who started as the most skeptical of the shamas, and who once spent a night indoors after chasing Cheepy in and getting lost, is now the most chill. The other birds are all hand-trained, but you can kind of infer their level of comfort by how strongly they grip your finger with their claws. Of the current birds, Birdlet hangs on fairly well so she can crank her head around and look around her, Tawny grabs hard since he expects to be chased away by an adult at any time, but Bird doesn't even clench down at all. He sticks his landing on my finger like an olympic gymnast and then keeps his claws entirely relaxed... quite a trick since the way bird sinews are constructed, the weight of a bird contracts the claws on a branch just from the pull of gravity. But bird just balances there using his tail to shift his center of gravity. This despite the fact that not only did he used to hate me as the yard monster, but he's a lot stronger than the other birds. One time a flurry of chicks knocked him back on my finger, and instead of flapping away he just clenched down, and rotated 90 degrees, causing his center claw to slash me as deep as a box cutter would, and about as cleanly other than the presumed horrible bacteria that a hunting carnivore probably has on there. But that was the only time. Also, if the other birds are sitting then and there's some odd sound from in the house, or a passing truck, or Muppet deciding to yell, they will clench down and swivel around. Bird just looks me in the eye and, reassured, goes back to whatever else he was doing. Ever since he originally negotiated his Treaty with me, he doesn't worry about my non-compliance. Have to tell that story sometime.
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| Bird will eat some radical stuff...here knocking back a venomous centipede in the front yard |
But he's reliable if I want a shama... I just open the door and give a brief whistle, and he's there. Yesterday I was reviewing a product Amazon had sent, a bag of black soldierfly larvae. I whistled him up from the backhard and offered him a handful. He regarded them skeptically, though it was clear to him they were being presented as food. Finally he wore me down and I gave him some reheated mealworms. (Neither Birdlet nor Tawny would eat the soldierflies either).
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