Little blue tit is doing well.
He can now fly okay over short distances but spends most of his time on a perch cheeping away. He has at least 3 different calls, meaning (as far as I can tell) "I'm starving!" "I've just landed on a perch" and "where is everyone?"
He looks much more like an adult bird now, he's losing the funny grumpy expression as the beak becomes more normal.
And he's starting to take little bits of food by himself. Today I've noticed him trying to pick up (dead) mealworms that I've dropped to the bottom of the cage when feeding him with the tweezers - he isn't very good at it yet though! I'm deliberately making him wait for a while before I feed him because that's what the parents would be doing now, reducing the amount of times they feed the chicks.
Most of the time he'll fly to me to be fed too rather than making me go to him, which will be very helpful when he goes outside.
One thing that concerns me is that his feathers look a little greasy - I don't know much about keeping birds as I haven't done it before, but a quick Google told me that he most likely needed a bath. He has a dish of water in his cage but shows no interest in it so I used a spray bottle to gently mist him, which he didn't seem to mind. Anyone know about birds? Am I doing the right thing here?
The humble Mallard
1 day ago
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Hmm I don't know Anna about being greasy. I know that birds naturally have oil on their feathers to make them waterproof, but I guess you can see something further than that. I wouldn't worry too much, I think he will learn to preen himself and sort them out, I wouldn't wet him personally, incase he catches a chill or something.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jan. His feathers look messy, like he hasn't been preening properly, but I know he can preen because he used to do it all the time. They kind of hang down a bit rather than lying flat to the body.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit concerned that he's spent most of the day on the floor of the cage, and doesn't seem to want to fly. Hopefully he'll be back to himself tomorrow.