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October 13, 2004 George & Princess at new nest After a three month respite from attempts at reproduction, Princess started building a nest again last week, and has just laid three eggs. She and George are still molting a little bit, but their energy levels are more or less back to normal. George sings now and then, and except for the time he spends guarding Princess at her nest, he is very active.

July 26, 2004 George started molting last week, and for a while we were worried by how weak and listless he had become. Fortunately, he started to improve just before we left on our short trip to NYC. Birds need plenty of rest and special dietary supplements to replace their feathers during this stressful time. Princess gave up on her latest clutch of eggs after a record three-week incubation effort. Now she is in flirting mode, looking for a different place to sleep each night, and has begun molting as well.

June 22, 2004 Baby That poor, helpless baby bird we "adopted" died over the weekend, probably because of the wrong diet. We'll never know what species it was. Generally speaking, it is best to leave alone any fledgling birds you may find on the ground, since they routinely fall out of their nests before they can fly and their parents usually stay close by. That was not the case in this situation; Jacqueline found this hatchling in a driveway, and it would have died in a matter of hours. Princess has now resumed her old routine of flirting in the window, refurbishing her nest, and quarrelling with George over romantic issues once again.

June 17, 2004 I think that little bird just might make it. It squeaks and thrashes about quite vigorously, and usually has a good appetitite. Having a lame leg, unfortunately, Princess has to be careful when she nestles down to keep her adopted "offspring" warm. She is very protective but still doesn't feed it. Details to follow...

June 15, 2004 Baby Could it be ... the blessed event we've been waiting for??? Princess is obviously delighted and very attentive, but doesn't seem to know how to feed the baby, even though she can see fledgling grackles and sparrows being fed by their parents right outside her window. So, we have to help with feeding chores, using an eye dropper. It's too early to say whether or not things will turn out well, so stay tuned.

That photo of George I posted on the Fenway Park page yesterday was taken, transferred to the Mac, edited, and uploaded to the Web server in less than ten minutes -- while he was still perched on that lamp!

June 9, 2004Princess laid four more eggs this week, which makes 22 so far this year. George is still singing regularly, and has recently gotten into the habit of flying into my office, apparently enjoying the songs being played on iTunes. The louder the volume, the louder he sings.

Apr. 23, 2004 Princess laid four more eggs this week, while George is singing more and more vigorously all the time, no doubt provoked by the outside songbirds that are engaging in their springtime mating rituals.

Mar. 27, 2004 Princess just laid four more eggs, and all the reproductive activity -- coupled with all the springtime songs of the outside birds -- has provoked George into frequent, loud, exuberant singing. Playing my new charango seems to get him going, too. Fortunately, both of them seem more or less adjusted to the frequent loud noise from all the construction activity out back. Most of the wild birds stay away whenever the workers are close by. The male goldfinches are starting to turn bright yellow, another sure sign of spring.

Mar. 3, 2004 Princess has laid three eggs, but she and George are very nervous about all the big earth-moving equipment rumbling around outside their window.

Feb. 8, 2004 After a few weeks of restless, irritable indecision on where to build a new nest, Princess finally laid three eggs over the past week. She ended up shunning the wicker basket which she used to use as a foundation, and built her new nest -- made of cotton wads and string -- is on top of a spider plant. George is excited by all the "seductive" chirps from Princess, and he has been singing and flying about fairly regularly. We recently put a thistle seed mesh sock feeder right in front of their window, and goldfinches regularly stop by to feed there.

Jan. 20, 2004 (After midnight) As of today it has been exactly three years with President George "Dubya" Bush AND with George, our pet canary. George flew into my office today and really sang up a storm, apparently responding to the songs from the Byrds and others I've downloaded from Apple's Music Store and have been playing on my iMac.

Princess, George, & Tweety

From August until November, Princess and George had a visitor
named "Tweety," whom we adopted from relatives.

Dec. 29, 2003 Princess just laid a clutch of FOUR eggs, which makes seven total for the month. Today George started singing again for the first time since August or September. He and Princess were frightened when a sharp-shinned hawk flew by this afternoon.

On a sad note, "Tweety," the female budgerigar (parakeet) died on November 9, after several frustrating trips to the veterinarian in hopes of curing her eye problem. For the last few days she was obviously sick, and we force-fed her pureed vegetable baby food, on recommendation of the doctor. In retrospect, we probably just should have let her go peacefully. The doctor never could determine the origin of the eye problem, as blood tests showed negative for infectious agents, and it may have been a tumor inside the head. George never really did get comfortable with Tweety, who spent most of the time cooped up in her cage. Princess, on the other hand, would often let Tweety get rather close. Sometimes one of them would get startled, and all three birds would fly around their room in a panic. It took Tweety a lot of practice to learn to fly for the first time in her life, and it's too bad that her last two months alive were spent with an awkward neck guard to prevent her from rubbing her bad eye.

Pre-2004 events

Just after I posted this page for the first time (Nov. 15, 2001), Princess became lethargic and we feared another mortal infectious illness such as Goldie had suffered. Based on the fact that she had been preparing her nest in recent days, I surmised that she might be having problems laying an egg (a problem known as "egg binding"). Jacqueline and I followed the recommended procedures from our canary book, and succeeded in helping Princess to expel her stuck egg. She obviously felt quite relieved and returned to her normal chipper self, and laid a second egg a couple days later. Unfortunately, neither egg hatched.

To our surprise, in mid-December 2001 she laid ANOTHER egg, but this time that was all. We caught George pecking at it a week or so later, but since all the others had been sterile we didn't get too upset about it and just removed it from the nest. Later we discovered to our dismay that there was embryonic tissue of a baby bird inside that egg!! That is, Princess would have finally become a mother. That tragic episode confirms what several bird experts have said: Male canaries can sometimes be dangerously aggressive around brooding females, and if so should be kept separate.

After we moved to Staunton on New Year's Eve (ugh!), Princess and George pretty much kept to their own room, which has plenty of plant leaves to munch on and plenty of bright daylight that helps to dry their feathers after a nice refreshing bath. They often perch in front of the window and react with loud chirps when crows or flocks of starlings swoop by. On January 6 we had our first big snowfall of the season, about 3 inches or so, which provided a fascinating change of outdoor scenery for them. On January 27 laid the first of three eggs in her first clutch in the cotton nest she built in a spider plant. Based on their amorous activity we observed, we thought they would be fertile, but this turned out not to be the case. Too bad...

After Princess stopped incubating the last clutch in late June, George took it upon himself to incubate the eggs, which seemed like quite bizarre behavior to us. He wasn't quite as docile as Princess is when she sits on the nest (she lets us stroke her back and tail), but I still couldn't believe it! Do you suppose he's really that eager to sire offspring, or was he just "getting in touch with his feminine side"? For the last few days has resumed his loud singing, reassuring us of his hormonal status. George and Princess handled the FOUR (!) overnight visitors in our apartment over the weekend.

In August 2002 Princess suffered a small wound near her left nostril, and it healed within a couple months, thank goodness. In October they had a "visitor" for a few days -- the wounded goldfinch that we rescued and later took to the Wildlife Center of Virginia, which put the poor crippled little bird to sleep.

Princess has kept up her prolific egg-laying, trying again and again and again to reproduce. After patiently incubating them for two and a half weeks, she returns to spending time on the perch in front of the window chirping loudly and flapping her wings, "flirting" with the outside birds. During the winter months there is much more "traffic" in the back yard, as juncos and other winter migrants swarm around the bird feeder out back, so our canaries get constant stimulation from their wild friends. Unfortunately for her, the only close relatives in Virginia are goldfinches, some of which do fly up to their window to take a look every once in a while. I don't know if birds actually feel jealousy, but George does seem to act more irritated toward her when she's like that. After a few days of flirting and quarreling, she and George always manage to patch up their differences and reaffirm their bond by nuzzling beaks. During the intervals between her egg incubating duties, Princess often joins George in flying out to the living room, which is always a delight. It's quite an amusing soap opera...

While Jacqueline and I were away on vacation in Mexico for two weeks in late February and early March 2003, Princess and George were cooped up in their cage, in a relative's house. They never got used to the cramped quarters, however, and often squabbled with each other. Upon returning, we found that George had suffered some kind of injury to his eye, but fortunately it was just a superficial problem that has not affected his vision. We witnessed a truly heart-rending scene when George -- who is usually the dominant one -- made the same kind of submissive "help me!" calls that Princess makes when she is on the nest. This told us that he was in bad shape, so we headed back home to Staunton immediately. He and Princess were obviously quite happy to return home and fly around free once again, though George seemed more awkward as he re-adapted. After a few weeks he was back to full health, thank goodness.

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