Blog post

May 18, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Fresh greens for canaries!

It's been nearly four months since I last had a blog post about our fine feathered companions, but rest assured they are both doing about the same. Princess remains virtually immobile, unfortunately, and our brief hopes that her wing feathers might grow back proved in vain. It's sad, but she seems relatively content, and we pamper her with food and treats as much as possible. As you can see in the photo below, she spends much of her time in a sheltering basket, which we move to the window sill and back two or three times a day so that she can see what's going on outside. She enjoys watching the outside birds, but she doesn't do her flirtatious chirps any more. Luciano often is unduly aggressive toward her, and because she is pretty much defenseless, we have resorted to putting a net around her basket for protection while we are not home.

For canaries, the advent of Spring means that fresh-picked greens from out back are available on a regular basis once again. None of that refrigerated grocery-store stuff! Princess and Luciano have an insatiable craving for the yellow flowers from the cabbage plants growing next to our back patio. (They are basically weed plants, but the Cabbage white butterflies depend on them, so we let a few of them grow.) Luciano does not seem to grasp the concept of "sharing," and often will grab from Princess whatever treat we have given her, even if we gave one to each of them. ¡Qué malo! In another month or two, Princess and Luciano will get fresh basil flowers.

Princess (left) and Luciano (right) can't get enough of those tasty yellow cabbage flowers.

I previously posted a photo of George eating the yellow cabbage flowers in June 2006.