An Egg from Maui

All of Maui's digging around in the cabinet was not for nothing. She laid an egg. She has only laid one so far. The first two times she laid five, but the third time she only laid four (maybe it was three). She might lay some more. This egg cracked as she laid it too high up, so she didn't even attempt to sit on it.

I put Hercules (the tortoise) in the kitchen while I am away at work as he has more room. The first day I put him there while I was getting ready for work. Maui had immediately ran over to the cabinet to dig around. Hercules happened to walk towards her cabinet. Maui was not happy. She came out all fluffed up. When it didn't deter Hercules' slow walk towards the cabinet, she began making some bluff charges. That didn't shake Hercules either. Then Maui reached out to touch him and he tucked into his shell. That quick movement was enough to startle Maui and she ran away. Hercules wasn't in his shell for more than a few seconds and he passed right by the cabinet. When I returned home that evening Maui didn't pay Hercules any attention.

Hercules is really liking the extra space. He now has the entire kitchen/dining/entry/bathroom room area, which is 20 times the size of his indoor pen. Within a day I noticed he regained his appetite.

I am working on my high-speed internet. I'll have it next week and hopefully a camera will follow that before long, with online streaming of the birds.

Trouble, as usual

Maui has been trying to find nesting sites around my apartment. Finally she began entering my kitchen island and digging around in the back. I usually remove her right away as my pots are on that bottom shelf. I also tried keeping the doors shut, but that resulted in bite marks on the outside as she tried to open them. In addition, she doesn't like the lining I put on that shelf and immediately began to remove it. Her love for that nesting spot resulted in her immediately going there as soon as I would let her out of her cage. It got so bad that I would have to remove her 6+ times within an hour of getting home from work.
After a couple weeks, I gave up and let her have that nesting spot. I put some newspapers in there to hopefully keep her from getting into other trouble. It has now been a couple of weeks and luckily she is still interested in that area. She began chewing part of the shelf, but I just adjusted a couple of pots and since she has been back to chewing the paper. I hope that shelf keeps her interest for as long as possible. Maui is such a determined bird. Manzi will go after something, but he gives up within a few days to up to a week. Not Maui.

Manzi has been super active lately. I don't know what has gotten into him, but he is flying like crazy for the last two weeks. He does laps and laps around my place. Sometimes diving at Maui, but more often going on the fridge to toss items off, landing on the counter, going into my closet to chew on clothes, etc. His ability to move around my apartment is amazing. He is an expert agility flier and can get through doorways, fly blindly around corners, hover while deciding where to go, etc. I am trying to recall train him again to get him ready for next Spring. Hopefully with this agility he'll be perfectly fine outside. There are bald eagles, but as long as he can see them I'm sure he'll be able to out-maneuver them.