Over Easy

My bird room this time of year is a hot bed of parrot hormones in chaotic overdrive.

Uncovering the cockatoo cage can uncover more than just a couple of white birds during the winter months.

Today's find was an almost perfect cockatoo egg sitting among the leftover bird pellets in the food dish.  Almost perfect I say as of course there was a slight chunk missing or how else would one of them picked it up and deposited it in the food bowl.

The cockatoos are both female and I have suspected for years they not only share the brooding of their egg, but also take turns on who is the one delivering the egg during the breeding cycle.  They are careful never to have more than a single egg to care for.  If one breaks and falls through the grate, a new one may show up a few days later, but never two.  Although they take turns rolling their egg around, they also sit side by side with it at times.  However the gentle care of the egg occurs only when there is not yummy food in the dish to munch on, or toys to play with, or the daily screaming match with the amazons.  Yes they are both good mommy material, when it suits their mood.

I'm not sure if the message to their human this morning was "hey this thing is broken, we need a replacement asap" or simply "we are tired of sitting on it in the bottom of the cage, time to throw out the old with the leftover food."

Either way, time for this little egg to go.  Of course there is no way to know if a new one will magically appear in the bottom of the cage in a few days.