First Egg is Laid!

Today we spotted the first egg in the nest!  What an exciting day!  Lucy is off and on the nest... anxious to see how many eggs she will lay.

The second egg arrives the next day, followed by the third egg on Tuesday, and the fourth egg on Wednesday.  Wow!  I'm hoping that is it... especially for Lucy's first time at being a mother.

When I came home from work later that week, I found an egg cracked open at the bottom of the cage.  It was an unfertilized egg ... so now there are three.  Hope we don't lose any more.

If You Build It, They Will Come....

Once we figured out that our male canary was actually a female, nesting material was gathered and put in the cage.  We started with shredded paper towels, then bought some sterile cotton for nests.  Lucy kept busy building her nest, filling it with cotton, then packing it down.  We kept adding nesting material, thinking she will stop when she is finished.  Well.... she built a nest that was like no other.  It looked like an ice cream cone!

Meet the New Members of our Family ...

Let me introduce you to our new family members ... but first, let me explain how they got here.

Day 1 - December 28, 2011

For the last couple of days, we started looking for a canary to adopt.  We immediately went to the Birdcage after finding out they had a red factor canary.  Red factors look more orange than red, and orange is my favorite color, so we bought the one and only red factor canary.  This canary looked like an orange dreamsicle - he was beautiful!

A couple of days earlier, we went to Walnut to find an antique bird cage for our new canary.  We came home with not one, but three bird cages!  All were great deals and beautiful cages so we had to have all three.  Our new red factor canary looked wonderful in his new gold cage.  We named him "Louie" after the St. Louis Cardinals - the 2011 World Series winner!

Day 3 - December 30, 2011
Bob decided we needed to have a female canary to keep Louie company - and possibly have baby canaries... so we headed back to the Birdcage.  Bob picked out a friendly, outgoing yellow canary with black markings (a hat on her head and eyebrows ... as well as marks on her wings).  With her bold and inquisitive personality, "Lucy" fit right in.

Day 4 - January 2, 2012

Lucy starts singing beautiful songs.  She loves the attention and we love to hear her sing.  Still waiting for Louie to sing ... it's the males that sing and we are wondering if he is too young to sing yet.

Day 7 - January 5, 2012
Bob adds honey to Louie's water to encourage his singing.  He loves the honey water.  We are hopeful he will sing soon.

Day 14 - January 12, 2012
We put nesting material in Lucy's cage, along with a wicker nest.  She picks at the nesting material and scatters it all over the bottom of the cage.  A couple of strands end up in the nest.  Maybe it's too early to build a nest.

Day 16 - January 14, 2012
Louie is still not singing. Bob put nesting material in Louie's cage just to see what would happen.  "Louie" started building a nest within hours of placing a nest in the cage!  So "Louie" became "Lucy" and our singing "Lucy" became "Louie."