Normally I blog about the Power of ART…
… but I have been asked time and again about my birdies, Sky & Promise.
If you follow me on Face Book, you know I love budgies/parakeets and have had them my whole life.
Recently, I’ve actually experienced the birthing/hatching process in my own garden room.
Did you know that parakeets will not mate unless there is a nest in the cage?
Did you know that the female (Promise) will move the eggs out of the nest if they are not healthy?
Did you know that once she has a healthy egg she will not leave, and the male (Sky) will feed her?
All of this was new to me, as well.
When I decided to put a nest in the cage I had no idea what a full time job this would be.
I also had no idea how beautiful this experience would be (for a woman who never has had kids).
Promise threw out 6 eggs before she kept one.
She sat on this special egg for 21 days, then the egg started to slowly crack open.
Below is not a picture of the actual baby because I wouldn’t disturb the nest for a camera shot.
(This is what it would look like, though, thanks to Google Images).
It takes 25 to 30 days in the nest, before the baby will “fledge”(meaning: stumbling outside the nest).
Even then the movements are awkward & difficult for the baby (Halo) who is struggling to move around the cage. Mom (Promise) is still feeding by regurgitating into the baby’s mouth. I even saw the Dad (Sky) regurgitate into the moms mouth so the mom can feed the baby when she was tired.
I was completely fascinated with this parenting process. I was watching innate/instinctive behaviors, which were essential to the survival of this new little birdie.
At 40 days I began to hold Halo in my hand so he/she would know that I am family.
At this time I didn’t know Halo’s gender because the nose was purple-ish. (Females have pink noses and males have blue noses).
It was maybe 10 days later, when Halo had all her fluffy feathers, I noticed that her tail was crooked and her feet were not straight forward. That was why she was still having such a difficult time moving around the cage.
I instinctively knew that if I held her and massaged her tail back it would help. She was open to the healing touch. The more I rubbed her, the straighter her tail became. We are still working on that, and may be forever. When we are rehabbing (on the bed with ceiling fan off) she will finally squirm and get away from my rub-down. She limps up my neck and cuddles under my chin as if to say, enough for today, Gram Tam. (OK, I added the “Gram Tam” part because that’s what my grand kids call me, but I’m sure if Halo could express herself…)
Halo is still fledgling but she gets around. She climbs continuously, and when her feet don’t hold the bars she falls from the top of the cage. But she flips her feathers in defiance, and starts climbing right back up. She is relentless, never giving up on her daily activities. (More on that in a future blog).
What I love most about Halo, is that she doesn’t even know that she is crippled/bent/different/special.
I feel blessed that Promise didn’t push this 7th egg out of the nest. I love this baby bird and hope to love on her for years to come.
Stay tuned.
