Bird Notes, Part 5, v662
Page 43
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
at bed-time; but I got him onto it by strategy several times by taking advantage of his assumption that he was going to sleep on my shoulder all night and walking with him to his bunk and put- ting him into it before he could realize what was happening. Each time he stayed a few seconds then made for the perch fastened to the inside of the entrance door--the most exposed and hazardous location in the cage. 10:30 P.M. A and T are still sitting on the edges of their respective bunks, where they were at 7:30. February 15th. Worked all day on a 9' by 12' extension to the cage to give more space for photography without objectionable shadows of posts and rafters. This gave me a good opportunity to check up on Rhody's comings. Rhody's visits to cage. He came four times while I was there, staying from ten min- utes to an hour each time and never going far away. He was perfect- ly at home, walking about on my construction work, taking food from hand and observing the youngsters. His song continues, but at irregular intervals. At bed-time last night's experience was repeated. At 6 P.M. (Sunset: 5:48) A and T were still up, A sitting by his bed and T on the perch at the entrance. The latter welcomed the approach of what he considers his own special perquisite and immediately transferred to my shoulder, puffing out his feathers, placing his warm stern against my cheek and settling down for keeps. I put a hand under him and he transferred his feet to it. I walked with him to his new nest and put him in it successfully this time and he immediately settled in it comfortably. Archie I left to a later occasion. At 7:30 T was still in his new bed, A on the nest support. A stepped readily on to my hand and I put him in his bed also and he stuck. It will be noted that, as on other disturbed occasions, these birds seem to have formed some unpleasant associations with their regular sleeping places and are reluctant to go to them. It is as if they had been attacked in them and remembered it. The quest- ion then seems to be: Is the attack from without or within? To this there is no definitely known answer. Terry's adult characteristics. Although Terry seems, in some respects, more of a baby than ever, he has recently shown some adult characteristics more def- initely than Archie, heretofore the more advanced. Thus T hroos much oftener, carries twigs more and even takes them up to roosts, etc., rattle-boos more frequently and has developed the very Rhody-like slap of the wings over his back which A has not been seen to do at all. 10;15 P.M. Archie and Terry are still peacefully reposing in their beds. What next? February 16th. A's "black-eye". Possibly due to the wound on the back of his head, Archie's skin patch back of his left eye shows, in the normally white por- tion, a decidedly green tinge. The other side is unchanged.