Walter & Lemon…

My son and his wife took a planned trip to Florida to collect a couple of birds to add to their staff.

The birds are “fit in your palm size” and not at all pretty.  They look like naked dinosaurs or if we want to go the mammal route, like furless and blind rats with beaks.

But they grow fast I am told and was sent this photograph of them 2 weeks old just after they were taken from Mum,

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and this one a week later thriving on formula.

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Hmmm, yes, I can see them getting a little prettier or maybe I’m getting used to their appearance!

During our homeschooling phase we nursed, among other wild things, raccoons who are quite different, suckling,

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posing for the camera,

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snuggling,

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and hanging out!

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Not that I’ve ever fed a hatchling a bottle (syringe to be more accurate) so I can’t really speak from experience, but the beak is not like a mouth with lips and gums and the feathers are a little poky, if my down duvet is anything to go by…

Before I flitted back to London, my home from no-home at the moment, their babies were still safely in-shell.  I wondered, how does one replicate what Mum-Bird brings to the nest?  Is their liquid feed made of blended worms and bugs?

“It’s a high protein formula,” I was told by my new daughter-in-law, an expert in bird behaviour and training, “they will be eating three times a day by the time we pick them up.”

By that time they were 4 weeks old and had been away from Mum for half their lives already.

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The proud adoptive parents took possession of their nuggets, our nick-name for them, last week and have christened them Walter and Lemon in memory of our dear theatre friend who died earlier this year.

Walter is in the back showing off his green head feathers and Lemon is in the front.

Blue and Gold Macaws in the making!

 

 

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