Spring is here...

flowering almond

Spring is here and all of the sudden flowers are everywhere.  Breeding season for gouldians is ending, but societies, cordon blues, shaft tails, purple grenadiers, star finches, owls, parrot finches, and the grasskeets are still on going.  I'm always glad of new babies.

pied dilute star finch baby, just fledged

creamino shaft tail, and blue faced parrot finch

lutino bourke male

bowel of creamino shaft tails

lutino and white faced pink bourke males

white fronted blue scarlet chested grasskeet male

white java baby

red factor canary baby

blue scarlet pair and red fronted yellow turquoisine

pair of red fronted turquoisines

pair of blue scarlets

cherry blossoms

blue lilac

tulips

dove nest in a holly tree

Feels like spring,,,

After a historic snow/ice storm, the weather is finally feeling like spring.  Hopefully the birds are feeling frisky as well...

Sweet Pea loves snow

snow flakes on the fence

wild birds were pecking at the stray seeds

Lucky exploring the snow

Mao would rather stay inside and be warm

shaft tails: creaminos flanking my "cream" baby

shaft tails: creamino, fawn, and cream

shaft tails: creamino, fawn, cream

red factor canary baby - napping in my hand

Lucky enjoying a nap

pearl society babies

dilute fawn pearl baby

 

Baby bird updates...

Almost all of the gouldians are molting, some for the second time of the year.  Not sure what is going on, but their breeding season is pausing currently.  Some of the gouldian babies born so far are molting into adult colors already.

Ken's newest siblings - 2 silvers and 1 pastel?

gouldian babies at various stages of coloring up

RH PB GB hen - great grand-daughter of one of my favorite gouldians, a BH PB/WB SFYB/BB male with a redline, who has since passed away

 While the gouldians are acting out of character, unexpected species are breeding.

 The canary baby has grown up a lot - it is red factor but has some mild variegation on the head.  In addition to the unexpected canary baby, a pair of sea green red faced parrot finches are brooding 3 fertile eggs.  The white java pair also laid 3 eggs, though not sitting as of yet.

Updates on various species...

1 pair of shaft tails has babies.  I've removed the 2 pairs from the big flight cage as they kept tossing or won't sit well.  I believe all the activities from the other birds int he flight interferes with their breeding activity.  I will let them rest for a few weeks and will try them in breeding cages...once I have one empty up.

I guess I have a pair of red factor canaries after all.  I knew I had a male as he always sang, but wasn't sure about the other younger bird.  It also sang rarely, so I was thinking may be it was just a young male, but recently I saw the older male "molesting" the younger bird, and a cracked canary egg showed up at the bottom of the flight cage, off they go into a breeding cage.  The hen has now made herself a nest, and I see her sitting in the nest tonight.  Hopefully, we'll have more eggs soon.  

The cordon blues have managed to sit tightly then quickly toss all their babies.  I'll let them try one more time, then that'll be it.  I may try to let a new young group of societies foster their babies if they toss again.

Still having a somewhat slow start with the gouldians.  A couple more babies had to be fostered.  These are my first redline couple's babies, so didn't want to risk losing them after the parents looked somewhat reluctant to go back to the nest.  Will be letting the parents try again.  A couple more pairs are raising their own babies, which is good.  The societies have also been raising a few of their own babies.  Unfortunately, no creaminos yet.  I have paired up a few new pairs of gouldians.  Fingers crossed.

I'm still handfeeding some of the scarlet chest babies, which always seem to lead to slower development unfortunately.  At least the plucked feathers have started to grow back.

Fledgling and misc. pictures

Rose

Cosmos

Rose

Mums

Mock Orange

Cosmos

Mums

Couldn't resist posting some fall flowers.

 Another nest of gouldians and other eggs fostered to societies.  These are more babies from the pair who are very light sitters.  I finally separated the pair and paired them with other partners to see if incompatibility is the reason for such unenthusiastic parenting.

 Close-up shows a hatching egg, so there soon should be 2 baby gouldians.

 Here are a couple of older siblings of the hatching egg and the just hatched baby; these 2 just fledged yesterday.  One is dilute so is a boy, and the second one is yellow.

  Two more yellow siblings of the previously mentioned babies and fledglings - note everyone has a red leg band to keep parentage straight.  These two are fostered with different societies and have fledged for about a week now.  They've gotten very good at chasing down their foster parents demanding to be fed.  Their foster parents are the one raising the recently hatched baby and the just hatching egg.  Young society fledglings are being raised in the same cage.

 Here's another society baby, a pied fawn.  Society babies tend to be almost overly precocious and will fledge before they have all their feathers.

 Ken's new siblings.  Three fledged with 2 more still in the nest.

Here's dad feeding baby.

"cream" shaft tail hen

Creamino shaft tail male

a pair of red faced star finch with a male gold breast waxbill showing off his orange rump

red headed parrot finch, pair of gold breasts, and red faced star finch hen in the back

Blush stretching, male gold breast, and male red faced star

yellow tipped beak black headed purple breast green back gouldian male

 Everybody loves to bath,

male pintail whydah enjoying a splash

 One never gets the bathing facility to oneself for long.  The red-factor canary wants a turn.

 My new lutino scarlet chested grasskeet hen with her split to ino sons eating lunch.

 Close up of Scarlet.  I can get this close because this side is her bad eye.

 Another society fledgling who looks like it should have stayed in it's nest for a few more days - surprisingly good flyers though.