Sunday Bird (Nest) Blogging

I haven't had the time to introduce the lastest additions to our avian family. Our parakeets Whitey (mama) and Queenie (dad) produced four eggs in their nest box after numerous amorous encounters. Those four eggs have now hatched and we have four rather ugly parakeet chicks. Here are two early pics of the brood:

You can see gorgeous glop on mama Whitey's beak. This is the delicious regurgitated food and what's called parakeet "milk" that nourish the babies. Whitey does emerge from the nestbox at times to eat at the food bowl but mostly it's Queenie, the father, who eats seeds and then passes the food into Whitey's beak who then does the same for the babies. Perhaps more info than you'd want or need, but you know how it is!

In the one above you can see that the oldest chick can hold its head up and has huge feet!

This is the latest shot. You can see that the feathers are starting to come in on the two eldest chicks. The eggs are laid about every other day so once they start hatching, one emerges every other day. Unfortunately, we learned today that the runt of the brood probably won't survive, which isn't unusual. The tiny chick was barely breathing today, and didn't look like it would survive the day. Ah, joy and tragedy in the world of the parakeets!

(Click on photos for larger images.)