Sadly I hit the dang delete button on my phone and lost the Triplet's first pictures in their Aviary mansion! Ggrrr!! It's not easy to take good pictures of them anymore, as they are so flitty, flighty and busy and their cage is facing a big window. They appear to love their BIG aviary mansion house and are eating up a storm everyday and taking darling little birdie baths. Wow, do they eat a lot! The floor around them is a "seed carpet"... so we've decided to use the fabric cover we use at night for warmth, also as a lower cage curtain during the day. Who knew 3 little rescued sparrows would eat so much, and their split seed hulls would be sprinkling our floor like a dull glitter carpet. I'll get pictures up soon of The Triplets in their aviary mansion!
Devlopmentally, the Triplets, aka Trippies aka Trips (they chirp back to all my silly little nick-names for them), are doing great! It's so interesting how I think I "taught" First Birdie how to take her first drinks of water and learn to take a bird bath, peck for seeds, etc. But the Triplets seemed to just learn on their own and mimic each other's actions. But of course this makes sense, as First Birdie didn't have any sparrows to observe, learn from, mimic or imprint to, but the 3 Triplets would just do whatever each other did, and just by bird instinct/internal "wiring" figured out what to do by watching/interacting with each other. We of course created the perfect learning environment for them, as when they were weaning from the hand feeding, there was an endless supply of seed, spray millet and a shallow amount of water in the little trough. Ah, nature never ceases to amaze and enthrall me!
The Triplets are molting a bit and loosing their baby feathers. I think I see some black chest feathers coming in on one or two, so I'm thinking (hoping a bit) that at least one will be a boy! They don't stay still long enough for me to really study them, and they do look so much alike, it's not easy to differentiate them. Their innate flee and flight button works too perfectly in this case! They will perch quietly though, and move closer to me when I do repetitive, high pitched familiar words (birdie, birdie, birdie; babies, babies, babies; Triplets, triplets, triplets; Trips, trips, trips). No doubt, I Am The Bird Momma!
Here's some great pictures of the difference between male and female sparrows.
These are NOT my Birdies! Found these online:
Female, right. Male, left
Male showing the beautiful black beard feathers
Female with her soft beige tones
Male with his dramatic darks
What an experience this has been! I do feel really bad, and sad, they were abandoned or not initially cared for properly by their sparrow parents, but they are as happy as can be with us.
It's so interesting, as all three of the Triplets have deformed feet! Two with a middle foot turned upward and the claw sticks up too. Cute but sad. All of them have one foot curled inward too. So perhaps "Mother Nature" "knew something"? I can somewhat tell them apart from their little deformities. Otherwise, they are perfect! It will be much easier knowing who's who if they're not all beautiful tawny, fawny, beige girls. But if they are, 4 sparrow girls in our house is just fine with us!
Miss First Birdie is PERFECT! Unbelievable after her fall 7-8' fall and subsequent damaged twisted neck. No permanent injuries, and everything about her perfectly functional and perfectly perfect!!! Since she was raised singularly, she is quite a bit more bonded to us and we let her free fly around still. Can you imagine the AMOUNT OF POOP if we let all 4 fly about the house! First Birdie's condo is not anywhere near the size of the Triplet's aviary mansion, so we feel a bit more guilty for her being caged. But the funny thing is, we open the door to her cage daily, and most days she doesn't even come out, as she's so content in her house. And when she does come out, she flies to us to check in, gets a treat, flits around a bit, and then goes back to her house. It's cute how the Triplets start chirping and chattering when First Birdie flies out, so this sure lets us know that there's definitely a relationship and communication between the 4 of them, but it seems that First Birdie is not at all interested in getting close (in physical proximity) to the Triplets.
Here she is visiting with Jim, and leaving him a "present" on his shoulder!
Have you ever seen such perfectly beautiful, perfect feathers!
We call these "love droppings"
First Birdie loves to come visit and perch on us
but she's not interested in being held
Just look at that perfect Birdie with her perfect feathers and perfect feet!
We just looooooooooooove all 4 of our Birdies! They are so adorable and so happy. They chirp and tweet back and forth to each other, but First Birdie doesn't ever fly close to the Triplet's house.
They also chirp and tweet endlessly, especially when there's lots of human chatter in the house and the TV is on. This must be from when they were babies, and closer to the TV, thus they are bonded to the human voice as part of their "flock".
We still feed them the moistened dog kibble baby food for protein, and they have an endless variety of seeds, millet sprays, fresh water, sandpaper covers to file their beaks on, and various perches to perch on and mirrors to play with.
They enrich our lives so much, and even though we lament what happened to them, and know the outside natural environment would have been most ideal for them, their safe inside aviary mansion is the next best thing!
Pictures of Triplets coming soon!!
Chirp Chirp, Tweet Tweet :)
