I didn’t notice it arrive, but a second parakeet joined the female at the top of one of the West Park trees [yesterday’s post]. Whether the angle was better or more light was on it, but it was possible to see this one’s red “collar” on its neck feathers: it was a male. It almost immediately began courting the first arrival. He appeared to preen some of her head feathers, and did pluck some of the leaf buds from the tree, feeding them to her, repeating this several times.
We thought it was likely that they would begin mating. But we left them to it, thinking that would be more likely if they didn’t have an audience. Instead we walked around the lake and, as chance would have it, were in a position to see the cormorant catching and eating a fish [posts earlier this week].