It’s almost 7pm and Birdy has had 5 meals so far. I’ve also increased the amount a wee bit each time but I am learning to let Birdy call the shots when she has had enough.
It’s a learning curve as today is only Day 2.
Before feeding – warming her up first.
The birds were chirping merrily at about 4pm so we decided to let Birdy go out (in the carrier, of course).
Birdy was clearly attracted to all the chirping. We aren’t sure which species Birdy belongs to, though, but we think it’s the woodpecker.
You can see Birdy flapping her wings in this video. She was already flapping her wings in the carrier too when I took her out for feeding earlier on. She wants to spread the wings and fly, but her wings aren’t strong enough yet.
We think Birdy is a woodpecker since she likes to perch vertically and peck wood.
The nest up on the old trunk is also a woodpecker nest. There are three holes in that trunk and we saw young birds peeking out of one of the holes. The mother-bird flew out from that hole too, to look for food and went back and forth.
We let Birdy exercise and hop around a bit. The exercise would be good for her to develop some strength.
You can see a young bird peeking out of this hole in the photo above. But it looked like this bird has yellow feathers. Birdy doesn’t have any yellow. But then again, maybe I saw wrongly.
The most logical explanation would be (as Joey suggested too) that Birdy is the eldest and she tried to fly, not knowing her wings aren’t quite strong enough, so she fell onto the grass in her attempt.
Birdy is still hopping around and there is no way her parents can bring her back up to the nest since she cannot fly yet. It’s also way too high for us to put her back, assuming that is her nest, that is. No ladder is tall enough to reach up to the nest.
Birdy did a low level flight and “flew” to our gate. Luckily we caught her back.
The kittens, lead by Smurfy, are scaling Stargate2. They insisted that I must report about them too as it’s not fair (they say) that Birdy has taken the limelight. Yesterday, after vaccination, they all took a long nap, but today, it’s back to zooming around again.
The kittens say I did not write about their upstairs adventure yesterday too. Yes, they all went upstairs to play yesterday, with Big Brother Smurfy keeping watch, sitting right in the centre of the hall, exactly like a lion. But they soon got really bored because there’s nothing interesting upstairs in the hall. Only an ironing board, sofa, an ottoman and two clothes racks.
B-O-R-I-N-G, they said and after a few minutes, everyone came back downstairs and went to play in the patio.
Birdy perches vertically. I think she is a woodpecker.
Feeding session in progress this evening. I can manage singlehandedly, if Birdy cooperates.
She did cooperate this evening, so feeding was over in just about 15-20 minutes!
She opened her beak so that I can pump in the soaked food. If I let her lick from a spoon, it takes far too long and she won’t get to eat much, so I still have to pump the food in. The tricky part is that the consistency of the soaked food must be “just right” with sufficient moisture. If it is too dry, she might choke on it. If it is too wet, she might also choke, so it has to be “just right”.
Not easy….but am getting the hang of it.
One more round of feeding at about 10pm tonight and we will call it a night and rest.
I must confess, it IS exhausting, but it a indeed a very happy moment each time Birdy eats a lump of food!