DJ here.
Just for the visuals, I'll throw in some office pix of Cheepy hanging out in our offices, where he'd spend quite a bit of time being a house-shama up until a couple months ago when the 2020 chicks started happening. He was mostly not getting food when he did this, though we'd eventually give him some. But he seemed to like the fact that other birds didn't bother him inside; and he clearly preferred the rooms where we were working. He wouldn't make any noise, and sometimes we'd nearly set something on top of him, just hanging out. He'd watch Sue do her internet and bookkeeping, and test various places in her office, or mine, to sit and think about things. As a house shama he didn't get into fights with other birds, and always eventually got a meal, so he treated it as legitimate territory.
Anyhow, I just went down to the lower yard, rather than just making the boiled mealworms available to the parent birds when they do a home invasion. Doing this I'm more likely to be able to check on the chicks. And indeed yesterday doing that, I had the first of the chicks standing on my hand... actually on the same hand as his dad and a cup of boiled chinese mealworms. He/she even took a few out of the cup after dad flew off to feed the other one.
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Cheepy just hanging out with Sue in her office |
And about "the other one".... turns out that despite my speculations and observations, there are definitely THREE cutie chicks in this batch, I know because I just went to the upper gate and they were all hopping around together while their parents fed them alternately. Since their parents aren't telling them to beware of me, they have no particular fear; hope that doesn't get them into trouble with other humans later in life. For a long time Bird would teach them that I was OK, but yell at Susie as a monster.... which didn't amuse her at all. More recently he has decided she's with me, and is to be trusted within reason around the chicks.
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Cheepy watching the world from Sue's laser printer |
I had noted to Sue several days ago that there might be three since Birdlet was loading up with food and flying across the street, while I could see dad feeding two of them nearby. In the past when I've thought that maybe she had just gone nuts, or was taking food somewhere scenic to eat it slowly, it always turns out that there's a wayward chick. Most times they eventually follow her back here; the only one which didn't was Peepy1, who was blown far downwind by a ferocious windstorm and who was fed by his mom flying a long way each time. Ultimately he didn't make it, which was clear from Birdlet's behavior, and they focused on Peepy2 and Peepy3, about which stories will probably be told in the future. Second hatching of 2019.
I can't yet tell this batch
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Cheepy in my office next to me, on my ergo keyboard |
apart; partly because they haven't neatly lined up three in a row for me, and they're pretty kinetic. Within only days they'll learn that they can get food faster by landing on my hand, and without interference from other species of birds, and I'll become their favorite tree. (The hand-feeding really is a shama advantage now that two species of bulbul has figured out we have mealworms. They can bully the shamas, particularly the young ones, but haven't got the nerve to land on my hand.)
Stay tuned.
Wow! Birds in the office! Do they fly in and out? We occasionally get chickens sneaking in (!), but our cat graciously helps to usher them back out!
ReplyDeleteHi! We had not been having any comments so got discouraged and stopped adding to the blog. I just saw yours! Yes, sometimes they come in. Chickie and Cheepie visited often before they left ho.e to establish their own territories😇
ReplyDeleteWHere do you live and how did you discover the b!og?
Im inspired to update now!
Feel free to add photos of you chickens and helpful kitty.
ReplyDeletehttps://photos.app.goo.gl/1iAjgvGV3WeNqTii7
ReplyDelete