(Part 1 can be found here)
It's extremely easy to find yourself becoming attached to something that you invest a lot of time and care in. Wally would chirp happily whenever he saw us and waggle what passed as his wings. He did however save his real excitement for the blue baby bottle that we now fed him with. Bottle feeding Wally became easier as we no longer had to guide his head into the feeding hole that mimicked the way Woodpigeon young feed. He dove in straight away.
This resulted in us having to wipe him down after every meal as he ended up wearing as much of the food as he ate. Eventually we had to give him a bath, using a plastic container. It turned out that he rather enjoyed sitting in a tub of warm water and being washed clean.
Over the days and weeks he got stronger. When he was able to walk he made regular trips along the kitchen bench (making a beeline for the baby bottle). He also liked to be near us and perch on a corner of the bench or kitchen sink to watch what we where doing. Wally also started to run up our arms and onto our shoulder and snuggle in (and take the odd peck, especially at a mole I have on the side of my neck).
His first flight consisted of flapping from one bench to the other to get closer to his feeding bottle. Once he mastered this he began to flap down onto the kitchen floor to explore his surroundings. It was only a day or so later that he was flying around the kitchen, using our heads and shoulders as landing platforms. He also took a shine to my hat that I left on the table and promptly turned it into a bed for himself, spending his time adjusting the creases with his beak before settling down and going to sleep.
By this time he was too big for his cardboard box, so our neighbour gave us an old bird cage as Walter`s next home. This was only ever going to be a temporary solution, as Wally was growing fast.
We needed to start thinking about a more permanent solution for the future.
Breast is best, failing that a rubber gash is better than nowt...
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