Lovebirds

I spent quite a bit of time watching these two peach-faced lovebirds in the pet store. Eventually I started worrying that someone would buy just one of them. That led to wondering if Bill would like to have them. Bill raised hundreds of lovebirds in decades of research on the evolution of behavior at Cornell. But he abandoned the lab in the 1980s and the last of the lovebirds died of old age at home shortly thereafter.

He was like a kid at Christmas (in his own understated way) when I asked him if he'd like to have them. So, they're happily living with him now. I think they're lucky. He immediately made a nest box for them, something a less knowledgeable person might not have thought of. He's looking for branches to use for perches, knowing the uniform diameter of dowels is bad for their feet. And the branches will run crosswise in the cage to give them more flying room (rather than lengthwise as they are in the cage we bought) . He knows that contrary to the instructions the pet store gave us, they don't care about eating fruit.

Maggy, we'll be needing names.

_