it's been a crazy week so far. our puaiohi began laying a couple weeks ago which is exceptionally early in the season, but i guess they can do whatever they want in captivity. one of our female's eggs have proven to be infertile, but i saw her and her mate copulating the other day (which was a little embarrassing since they did it right next to me) so i'm sure future clutches will fare much better. one of our other females that we have affectionately named "green mama" due to her having a single green band also laid. She is actually the oldest captive pu in the program and was caught back in 1995 and is stud book number five! that's pretty impressive considering we're up in the 220's now. so, unfortunately she's probably past her prime egg years and is quite a bit tubby so she was not given a mate this year to make her egg fertile. we did give her an egg from another pair that wasn't sitting but unfortunately it seems the egg died early in incubation. i'm pretty bummed about it because green mama seems to have a very motherly instinct and really deserved to have a chick to raise this year. i have included a picture of green mama sitting in the big beautiful nest she built. now all of that is a little sad, but don't worry there is good news! our final pair to lay eggs seems to currently be doing much better than all of the others. i was on forest birds today and saw the female bringing the worms i gave her up to her nest and feeding her beggy little chick or two. i couldn't make out two distinct peepers, but puaiohi traditionally lay two eggs in a clutch so we're hoping that there are two little guys in there and one of them is a little younger and harder to hear above the sound of the older sibling. they are currently at day 6 from when we believe they hatched and they only have less than two weeks before they pass from their tiny, pink and helpless hatchling stage to being a full grown fledgling that can start to leave the nest and learn to forage with it's parent. birds never cease to amaze me with how quickly they grow up. one day they're depending on you for food and warmth and three weeks later they're ready to fly off on their own. speaking of flying, aren't fledgling nene stretching their wings hilarious! that picture is a few weeks old and our goslings have lost all of their fuzz and are hardly distinguishable from the adults now except for their "dirty" looking neck that hasn't grown in the adult white feathers.

in other bird news we have had some issues with one of our crows, kauila. he has had eye problems since he was brought back into captivity after his brief release into the wild. it seems to have stemmed from his eyelashes growing into his left eye and causing problems. unfortunately, these problems got worse recently when the cornea in his eye burst. i feel so bad for him because it's a daily battle to keep his eye intact. we give him medication all day and it gets better and better, but over night it collapses and deflates and we find him in the morning with a sunken in eye that is extremely painful and sensitive. i have included a picture of me holding him and it shows his eye at a good period where it is inflated and bright, but there is still a white unceration in the center where the cornea burst. i believe that he does, amazingly, still have some minimal eyesight out of that eye, but probably not for long because the vets from san diego are coming to do surgery on it. i will be glad to have the whole painful process over for him, but i worry he will have a difficult time maneuvering in his tall aviary with no depth perception. i will work hard to give him lots of awesome perches connected together so he can feel confident moving around and not isolate himself to one place in the aviary and starve. poor boy.

in happier news we received a new crow on friday. i don't have any pictures of her yet because i didn't want to scare her but i'll get some soon. her name is kiwa'a (key-vah-ah) and she is a super smart and very beautiful crow. she is the new girlfriend for our male kela (K-la). It's great to see that they have really taken to each other and hopefully they can be socialized soon and may actually become a breeding pair this year. i have included a very endearing picture of kela checking out the camera with interest and a second one of him being very masculine. male 'alala have chin feathers and head feathers that they fluff up when they are cawing and doing other sorts of "manly" crow things. isn't he handsome!