I noticed yesterday morning that Darjeeling kept picking at her butt. Well, in bird terms that's her vent area, and a bit higher up on her tummy. It looked like she'd plucked out some of the feathers in that area, and the ones that were left were dirty and matted...with something. A particularly nasty poop? Blood? A broken egg? She was always a good egg layer, but it's been a couple of years since any of the Societies laid an egg. She was eating, pretty active, and since it was daytime there was no way to catch her without causing all the Finsters undue stress. So I watched her a lot, and waited. Unfortunately, I never saw her taking a big, long bath, which would have helped solve the mystery.

Bruce and I were going to catch her last night, but after thinking some depressing thoughts ("If she's going to die, wouldn't she be happier doing that smothered amongst her Finster friends than all alone in the hospital cage?") we decided to wait until first thing this morning. Bosco dying last month (of a broken leg?!?!?) and my aunt Rosalind dying the other night had me a bit pessimistic.

We weren't at it quite early enough this morning to make it easy, but Tea got a little adventure in Bob, and a toenail trim, and we got Darjeeling finally. A good look in the calm of the bathroom didn't reveal any clues. Clearly, she's had "an event." It seems to have involved some blood (bad), it seems to be over (good), and I didn't see any obvious signs of a specific problem (frustrating, but typical). I plopped her into some warm, slightly soapy water twice to try to clean her up a bit, wiping her off as best I could with tissues, and then put her quickly into the hospital cage to dry off and warm up. That's where she is now, all bored.

What she really seems to need right now is a long bath, which is one thing the hospital cage isn't good for, but a warm rest won't hurt, either. Vitamins and calcium in the water, I have an appointment with the vet for tomorrow morning (the earliest I could get) just in case. Apart from that, wait and see.