Sunday Baby Bird Blogging

Well now the oldest and second oldest baby parakeets are out of the nest:

That's Hambone (left) the oldest and Jumbo (right) the second oldest, now apart from their mama (Whitey) and in their own small cage. We called the second oldest Jumbo because he is alot bigger than his older sibling. We're thinking the oldest one, Hambone, may be a female.

At first, they tended to stay on the floor of the cage and in the furry "tent" that hangs nearby. Next it was climbing rather clumsily onto the perches, flapping their wings and scampering all over the cage in between frequent naps. They also clean their feathers alot, eat seeds all day and into the night and spend time carefully preening one another.  Hambone likes to bang a hanging string of beads as noisily as he or she can against the cage. Listen to all the noise I can make!

The youngest surviving baby is finally getting feathers and starting to grow more rapidly, so we think it may now be out of danger. In another week or so, he'll probably be out of the nestbox as well:

We think it helps that the other two babies are on their own so the littlest one can get all of the mama bird's feeding. After appearing to be in some danger of surviving, it's doing much better now, as you can see.

Here's one more photo of the oldest baby, Hambone, before being joined by his or her sibling in their own cage:

(Click photos to get larger images. Click to see the earlier Bird Blogging photos.)