Green Acre: Birth of a Budgie

This coconut shell is where parakeet Cooper lays her eggs. This time a baby budgie developed. / On the front, Cooper, left, and Goldie. Photos by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

By Stephanie Cavanaugh

OUR BABY BUDGIE was born in a coconut shell, so of course her name had to be Kamala. 

Rather a surprise she was, making her presence known with tiny cheeps, like the little mice that secrete themselves around the house, occasionally darting from this hidey-hole to that, as quiet as . . . mice. 

These cheeps were different from Cooper and Goldie’s, the parental parakeets. Their voices are deeper, louder, often involved in raucous conversation with each other—and with the neighborhood birds that visit on the back porch, where Cooper and Goldie spend their summer days. 

Kamala’s cheeps are one note: Hey, I’m hungry, feed me. She’s hungry a lot. 

Actually, we have no clue if Kam is a she or a he, that won’t be known for six months or so. We had the same issue with Cooper and Goldie, who were very young when they came into our lives. Parakeets have a hard little bit around their nostrils that starts out beige but becomes blue if the bird is male and deep tan in females. Pure white Cooper (who turned out to be female) was named for Anderson Cooper. The only male Goldies I’ve heard of were Jewish gangsters. Goldie is all boy. So, oops. 

Cooper is an amazing mother, spending most of her days inside the coconut shell, which dangles from the roof of their cage and was given to them as a toy many months ago. They like snuggling in it. Cooper also finds it a fine place to drop her eggs, which are astonishingly large, the size of marbles. It must be like giving birth to a 15-pound baby.

The eggs arrive several times a month, but up until now have been infertile. She sits on them for a couple of days, then tosses them out onto the cage floor if nothing’s happening. Perfectly normal behavior, say the approximately 632 Internet sites I consulted. 

(My, these sites are opinionated. It’s like talking to the La Leche League, 40 years ago. How they preached at me while my baby was screaming for food. Firstly, the parakeet sites say, NEVER give birds coconut shells. Oops again.)

It took Goldie a long time to figure out how to “do it,” if you catch my drift. While they spent a great deal of time kissing and grooming each other, it was only a month or so ago that he got the mechanics of the act down and clambered onto her back. 

Kamala arrived on August 4. Hearing the peeps, I put down my coffee and peeked in to find a tiny featherless pink thing, kind of disgusting-looking, but alive. As I understand it, Cooper gets food, chews it, and spits it into the baby’s mouth for the first weeks, sitting on her/him/it/them for warmth (I think).  

For days, Goldie paced back and forth on one of the branches suspended in the cage, like a dad in a hospital waiting room circa 1955. They both seem frazzled: Cooper’s white feathers rumpled, her expression unhinged; Goldie muttering to himself as he paced, waiting for his woman to get bored with that weird-looking thing.

This week, Coop is back to making out on a branch with Goldie and spending less time in the coconut, even as Kam sprouts bristles, like a two-day beard, that will soon become feathers, and tries standing on wobbly legs. This morning her eyes finally opened. What a miracle this is. I just hope it doesn’t happen again. Are there itty-bitty bird condoms, I wonder.

Speaking of babies, mine just popped out a daughter. Piper Jean was born on July 30, five weeks early. She’s small, but so fine, and looks exactly like her brother, Wesley, which is a very good thing. I hope she gets his eyelashes.

Wes is 4½ and besotted with his little sister, though that did not keep him from saying to his dad, who picked him up from camp the other day, Why don’t we go to the movies and leave the girls at home?  

I ask you. Where do they get this stuff?