FEATURE
as they are large robust birds, but I was concerned about a pair of White- crested Turacos I had picked up at the same time. These were showing more signs of the cold! The pair of Violaceous settled into their flight well and by May were feeding each other and dancing and calling often during the day. The male was showing a growing interest in the nest pan I had hung up in the outside part of the flight. This was actually a large twig woven hanging basket I bought from B&Q, well secured to the outer wall of the shelter. To this I added straw and left them to it. The male would spend long periods of time sitting in the basket calling to the female as she came close with a cackling type of noise. Occasionally she would alight onto the rim of the basket and peer in and as she became more involved in the nesting process would sit with the male in the basket. On the one occasion I was able to look into the basket a few small thin sticks had been arranged on top of the straw. They both became increasingly aggressive refusing to let me anywhere near the nest and so I didn’t really know when any eggs were laid or how many had been laid.
The aggressive behaviour consisted of spitting and hissing, a wide open mouth gape, wings outstretched to reveal the red on the underside and
moving towards me as I got closer. I
suspect that they would have launched themselves at me if I had got too close. There were also regular periods when they would show no interest in the nest alternating with periods of showing interest. Much of this in the early stages seemed to be related to the weather. The warmer the day, the more involved they were with the nest. However the female was slowly becoming more bulky especially towards the rear and was much heavier in flight, preferring to perch more than usual. Having kept birds of all sorts for a long time, I know these signs mean egg laying is about to begin. It is also a more worrying period for the aviculturalist in case of egg binding, so vigilance is essential. Each adult eventually began sitting in the nest regularly changing over about every two hours. From this point onwards I knew there were eggs and calculated the hatch date roughly 22 days further on. I was not expecting them to hatch as these would have been the first eggs that the female would have laid. They sat very tight which was encouraging but in 22 days there was no visible change in behaviour.
I tried to look into the nest, but this proved impossible. The only thing I did notice was that each bird was spending more time on the floor
BIRD SCENE 43
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