Oh, Dear....

I've been convalescing and keeping a low profile, just poking my nose out as much as necessary and turtling again.

On Monday, or perhaps it was Sunday, I was nosing around in the pidgie palace and discovered a bit to my shock and dismay that Woo and her nestmate '15' have a baby in their nest bowl. They had 4 eggs in there, which makes them a pair of females...hanky-panky! They are determined to protect their precious from ogling by ugly bald headed humans so I haven't glimpsed the thrashing squirmer since and have no idea if it's still alive, or...shudder...has siblings. :(

I was quite comfy thinking that the females had bonded and would continue to lay their infertile eggs when the fancy took them and the population would remain under control. EEEK. Meanwhile Mama and Papa apparently are bored with their new home - or maybe they like it a lot - today I found a pair of eggs in their nestbox too. It's her first normal pair, so far she's produced one bad egg per round. Last time one wasn't fertile, maybe such will be the case this time around as well. Hopefully neither of them is any good. I'm beginning to be overrun!

I will be shopping for plastic "dummy" eggs immediately!

The loft can hold up to 30 birds, but I never wanted to have that many! I was pretty content with the 9 or 10 I had - oops.

I've banded both of Beauty's babies, kind of funny, I banded the larger one and the next day I found the band OFF the baby's leg and dumped in the channel outside the bowl..with the POOP. Guess that's what mom and dad think of that ugly green plastic bracelet on their offspring. One of them will be dark! A surprise as his mom and dad are mostly white, his grandparents on mom's side all white, and gramma on dad's side, too...somewhere in there a cross was made and this is it coming back I guess. I took this pic a few days after the first:

you can see the darker one already showing. Today he's got pin feathers starting and his primaries will certainly be dark and maybe his head, he has spots of darker pigmented skin on his feet too...it's much fun watching them grow and imagining what they'll be like when they're bigger (besides fertile!) The smaller/younger of the two isn't getting its fair share of the groceries, I'm afraid, and so far I think it will be white like mom. Maybe it's a boy and a girl...?