Saturday, March 07, 2009
I might have mentioned this earlier, but my balcony is playing host to a nesting pair of pink-breasted green pigeons this year. It's a very nice surprise, as these birds are uncommon in urban areas (not that any house at the foot of Kent Ridge can really be called urban). They made a rudimentary nest amongst the tangle of branches in the bouganvillea tree, lined with Tillandsia usenoides from the same tree. The babies finally hatched some 2 weeks ago, and there were 2 of them.
This morning my mom came shrieking to my room, saying one of the babies had fallen onto her car and got stuck at the windscreen gutter. The poor thing had barely a few feathers, and when I returned her to the nest I found it empty - mommy pigeon was sitting on the wild cinnamon right opposite my house, together with the other baby. They were weaning! Mommy is teaching them to fly, but I suppose this kid was just a tad weaker/more scared.
It's always a heartbreaking moment when baby birds start growing up and fly off. The same happened to the sunbirds the other time, and boy did I miss them. The nice thing though, is that they've always returned to the same place, just to check it out. I'm going to watch if this little one that fell down makes it - if it doesn't, we might have to adopt it until it can fly on it's own.
I'm trying to spruce up my garden to make it more bird-friendly. There's already a wild pink banana that sets the birds fighting for food when it fruits, and I've made an order for giant sunflower seeds to grow so that they can pick at the giant seed heads when they're dry.
I wonder what it'll be next year - a pair of peacocks outside my bedroom window, perhaps?
Wenky
9:31 AM
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