Sitting Spock

Spock has been sitting for over a week now.

Spock grabbing a quick snack

We have built a weather-shelter over her nest to protect her from the worst of the rain and the wind. She looks very cosy. Interestingly, she took over the nest only after we had rebuilt it... The original nest had four eggs, and no sitting bird, and was completely waterlogged after all our heavy rain. Spock had been unusually aggressive with the others, and we suspected she may have been tending towards broodiness, so we took away the soggy grass, lined the mud with new grass, added dry straw, and replaced the eggs. They stayed cold and lonely for a few days, then the clutch was added to, and once it reached 6, Spock moved in.
She only comes off twice a day to gobble down meal-worms and seeds before racing back to her eggs. She looks as if she will be a good mother, judging by her devotion to her eggs. Unlike Snowpea, she doesn't let us feed her on or near her nest but rushes off as soon as we approach. She then chases off any other nearby bird with the harsh angry call that all the broody birds seem to do.

Spock snug in her shelter

We were worried about a possible lack of fertility in her eggs, as we have never seen any of our males with her at any time. She is at the bottom of the pecking order, and is bullied by all the other birds. We think, but we can't be sure, that it is because she looks different - she is our only bird with "tuxedo" markings (dark brown with white patches).

When she started sitting we feared that she would work hard for three weeks with nothing to show for it, so we replaced one of her eggs with two laid by one of the other girls. (Thankfully she didn't reject them. We felt a little bad putting two cold eggs in her nice warm nest, but as she had only started sitting that day we hope there isn't too much of a time lag between the original eggs and the new additions). We broke open one of hers to look for the little bullseye mark that means the egg is fertile. It was there! Yay! The males must be doing their job, despite us never seeing them...

 

Waiting

We're still not totally convinced but we will just have to wait and see.