Begging Grandma for Food and eating on their own (16-17 days)

From the

Diary as of  8/5/ – 8/6/09

8/5 The parents Willy and Winnie are  feeding like crazy now. One could get the impression that they do it every half hour or so which is nonsense of course.  But each time I look towards the babies I see Willy – mostly Willy – feeding them.

Winnie laid  egg #8! in the second small nest beneath the bicycle. Apparently she is competing with Emma. Oh my, we have two egg laying machines now…

8/6 The babies are now 16/17 days old and Winnie tries to lure them already out of the nest! Isn’t this a bit early? My goodness – their childhood is short enough anyway and they had to suffer enough already.

Both babies have started their wing muscle training. They are able to flap their wings each day a bit longer and quicker. It makes a lot of sound – like a group of bats flying somewhere  😆 – and they have started to eat seeds of their own. Doesn’t work yet with everything – they are choosing the small ones but I have seen that they actually managed to swallow them. What progress!!

Today – when Emma came in to go to the foodhouse – she was literally mugged. Both babies begged her for food and Emma was quite irritated about that. It was very funny. And while Emma ate her seeds in the foodhouse the babies watched her closely. The she changed to eat from one of those foodiepots and also was closely observed by the little ones. When Emma flew off again both babies started to pick their own seeds from the foodiepots. How sweet.  I have documented this in this little video:
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But they did not even start to eat on their own but I saw Peppi drink from the water on his own for the first time. What an achievement!!

In the meanwhile Peppi weighs 290 gr and Pina 275 gr. Not bad – isn’t it although they are fed merely by Willy only. Winnie did not feed them once today. She is so busy with her new eggs. Strange behaviour. Poor Willy – all responsibility is on him now. But he loves his little ones – you can see that.

The funny thing is that Willy must accompany everything with pijjie comments, not only when he is feeding. All the time when he is here to feed the babies he grunts and growls as if he were a mad dog. Even when one of the babies sticks his beak into Willy’s beak he does not stop to grunt and growl as if he were a bit nuts. But he IS nuts! I have never heard a pigeon before making these sounds – not pigeon-like at all – he has a very croaky voice although he can coo with wonderful sounds as well…

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