Bird Watching: Search for a new Papa, 1 by 2dCousinDave

2dCousinDave wrote:
Hi Sheri
Everything is going along wonderfully, somewhat to my surprise. The new male has settled into a routine very similar to Papa's. He is outside early in the morning, and is very close by all through the day. He takes meal worms to Mama when she is on the nest and stands guard when she is in the feeder cage. He has all but stopped his singing but hangs out within sight of her nestbox, which must be a real comfort to her. It is a great relief for me.

Mama continues to sit of the eggs, which should be hatching this thursday or friday. I wonder how he will react to the chicks once they hatch. I am going to be in West Virginia from friday till monday, so she will be on her own as far as food is concerned. I sure hope he is a good hunter and helps until I get back. In the past my birds never fed the newborn chicks meal worms anyway until they were four or five days old. By then the chicks require more food than the parents could quickly find and they began to look to me to supplement their catch.

Here is a picture of the new male, taken today. He was on his way to give the worm to Mama. As you can see, he only took her one, so it is mostly a gesture. She actually prefers to feed herself and often refused Papa's offers.

He has quite a beak. I have gone through some of my pictures of fledglings to see if I have ever had one with a beak like that and so far I have not found anything similar. His coloring and other markings are quite typical of the blues we see around here and in fact, he resembles Papa in most ways. Whether he is one of Papa's offspring is something we will probably never know and I guess it doesn't matter very much anyway, really.

I am sorry to hear your birds have not nested in your yard. Did you have the new box mounted in the yard as you planned to do? You know they are unpredictable, so maybe they they haven't nested anywhere yet.