Monday, May 19, 2008

Budgies Move to Summer Palace

Spring has sprung, and according to the Farmer's Almanac and NOAA, the last risk of frost passed May 16th and so the budgies have moved to their summer residence. Their winter palace is the basement, in front of the window, which is nice, indeed. However, the budgie summer palace is truly grand. Sorry there isn't a picture, but I can't find the point and shoot and Mary ann chewed through the webcam cable as many of our gentle readers know.

The summer palace is actually still in the same aviary cage, but, it is moved up to the screened in porch. They get plenty of indirect sunlight and a corner of direct sunlight. They get fresh air on three sides, and have one side facing the wall. So, they get the UV that they love (because they can see in the UV range). I note that Mia is particularly lovely in the sunlight, with a pale, delicate yellow undertone and very lovely blue markings (once again, no pic). They interact with the other birds by chirping loudly and of course generally, hopping and flying around. The budgies really like the eucalyptus, and it seems to be where they sit when it is a bit cooler (it was only 64 today). They still sleep by crawling up the side of the cage and hanging from their bills at night (more on their sleeping positions to follow).

2 comments:

Carl said...

I hope that the budgies enjoy their Summer Palace as much as they would the Summer Palace in Beijing. Supposedly the Empress of China built that palace using the money that foreign powers had lent her country to build up its navy; I hope that the budgies will take a lesson from this and invest wisely the funds entrusted to them!

Budgie Blogger said...

The budgies, I suspect, would be very fiscally irresponsible, if food is a surrogate for money. That conclusion is based on the fact that when there is a favorite food, they rapidly devour it. Additionally, when food is put out to last (ie, when we are away for a weekend), they seem to eat pretty much all of it right away and then go hungry for the next day or two.

The Happy Couple

The Happy Couple
Sutcliffe and Maryann in early 2007