Pigeons

[Crackle]

Last night it was the coldest of the winter so far, -6 deg C around here, and again it was the first night that Mildred decided to leave the baby pigeons alone again like she did with the previous pair of babies, which if you remember, unfortunately perished left on their own in the sub zero temperature.
Last night at dusk when it was obvious Mildred was not going to return I moved my little "hot sock" closer to the nest and the babies have survived the night.
I have put a thermometer in there and it is recording +2 deg C on the edge of the nest so not that warm, but the babies can snuggle up closer to the sock.
The babies are 18 days old now and do have featherers, but they are not fully formed enough to keep them warm over night, they both stand up tall when you talk to them, quite amusing to watch.

Mike

[Crackle]

Here are a couple of photos taken today.
       
As the fish pond is frozen over and re-froze again after I broke the edges this morning, I have placed a small bowl of warm water in the bird house. I am hoping it will be warm enough to prevent the water in the bowl freezing.
The adults need to take frequent drinks when they are feeding the babies to help make the liquid food they give to the babies.

Mike

[alanworland]

If more folk considered wildlife like you do Mike the world would be a better place
Hope they survive, they deserve to!

Alan

[Crackle]

I had a surprise an hour ago, the temperature had shot up to 16 deg C, I went out and turned the variac down.
Then I realised one of the babies had been sitting on the digital thermometer sensor.

It is costing a bit at the moment, we have got through a 20 kg sack of mixed corn since Christmas.
Now the sun is shining on the roof of the little house the temperature seems to have stabilised at about 11 deg C.
Last night I had the variac set to 120v it is on about 90v at the moment.

In post 56 I mentioned that a previous baby (Ivory) and his girlfriend had set up home in a new bird table I had made.
They eventually laid 2 eggs, on or around 5th Jan. We now have a second family, we have seen what looks like just one chick, which is about a week old now.
Ivory and his misses seem to be different in the way they behave to their parents.
George and Mildred have been in and out of the nest all day, taking it in turns to sit with the chicks and feed them, they spread the work load very evenly.
Whereas Ivory takes over from his misses sitting with the chick at about 11 am and stays in there until about 3pm, there is no frequent changing over. Then his misses takes over for the evening and she is sitting with the chick through the night.
There is a hot sock in there as well in case she leaves the chick alone at night.

I dont think George and Mildred have seen their grandsquab as yet.
Mike

[Crackle]

Hmm interesting, Mildred has decided to stay with her squabs tonight, I thought for a while that George was also going to stay as they were all crammed in the back of the house as dusk was starting. But George left just before sunset.
So maybe the mother decided after the very cold night she must stay with her squabs. Pigeons are very clever at direction finding and homing, but obviously don't have any natural ability to predict the weather. But it may be they can learn the possible outcomes, like when their last squabs perished on a very frosty night.
I have got the hot sock turned right down to 50v at the moment, as it is a bit of a squash in there with mum and 2 nearly full grown squabs and the hot sock.
Mike

[Crackle]

Disaster, this morning I pulled back the dining room curtains half expecting to see Mildred sitting on the perch outside their house as normal, but what I saw shocked me.
There were what I thought were white feathers all over the lawn, and lots inside the bird house.
I believe that during the night or early morning something has climbed up to the bird house and Mildred has fought valiantly but has been taken as there is no sign of her body, only the white down feathers from here belly.
The 2 babies which are about a week from fledging seem to be unharmed, as much as I can tell without getting to close to them.

George has visited the scene several times this morning but so far we have only seen him looking around at the feathers in the house and on the ground. So I have removed as many  of the feathers as possible.

As I type we have seen George go in up to the squabs.

The plan tonight will be to put a cover over the front to try and prevent what ever it was returning for the squabs.

Mike

[Refugee]

That looks like a domestic cat has tortured it to death. They usually start locally and then cart the bird away to finish it off else ware.
We had one attack a wood pigeon in our garden but in our case it got onto a seedling bed that had an electric fence to stop the cats killing the seedlings by stamping them back into the ground.
The pigeon survived and flew again. The cat sulked for quite a while before leaving the garden.

[Crackle]

I now feel that whatever it was that took poor Mildred will almost certainly come back for more.
So I have made a cover with a sliding door to fit over the front of the house tonight.
I will have to experiment tomorrow and monitor what George does and if he accepts the cover being in place with the pigeon size entrance open.
Otherwise I will have to remove it again during the day.

Somehow I cant see a fox getting up there, but a cat is a possibility, I just dont know, maybe an owl or some other bird of pray.
We have seen a Sparrow hawk in the area, but attacking at night or before dawn, I dont see that happening.

At the moment George has stepped up his game and is visiting the squabs every 10 minutes or so. That seems more frequently then both he and Mildred used to feed them.
I am also now leaving grain in the house to encourage the squabs to start eating it.

Mike

[Refugee]

Birds of prey usually knock the pigeon out in flight and take it away. The mess on the ground is like the one that I found in our garden and the CCTV revealed it to be a cat. The time stamps on the recording showed how long the pigeon was tortured for before it got into a safe place.
The pigeon in our garden had learned that the guard wires were only over the seed drills and that there was enough space between them for it to stay there until the cat was gone.
We usually put seed down in winter to stop the pigeons pecking at winter cabbages. There are no winter cabbages this year because of fence replacement and raised bed improvements and eradication of rats.

[Crackle]

For anyone interested in this saga, it seems that Georges nest has been very much in demand with the other pigeons now that Georges original partner has gone, and George has found him self a new mate. The squabs have both finally fledged, almost 4 days late, and George is continuing to look out for them. The squabs are still using the nest during the day and over night.
There is however a bit of apparent resentment from one of the squabs at the thought of his new step mum, and he is continuously trying to evict the new female. The squab has sustained a bit of a bloody nose in the process as he is obviously a bit smaller than Georges new mate, but the squab has succeeded many times to evict the new female. She perseveres with sitting at the entrance to the bird house and has even seen off another of Georges female suitors, who incidentally was a bully to both of Georges squabs.  

Mike