Finches

It all started with the innocent gift of Max and Erma, a regular and a pied peachfaced lovebird pair (named after the ColumbusOH restaurant, Max and Erma's, with the great cajun shrimp .

Max and Erma necking

Now I have...

BIRDS BIRDS BIRDS BIRDS

Of course, my favorite is the LADY GOULDIAN FINCH, an Australian bird that has amazing sets of color combinations: red head, black head or yellow head? lilac, white blue breast? green, or blue, or yellow body? you can have them all! and the males dance!

Fawn Java Sparrow Gouldian Fledgling, just fledged this moment Oct 6, 2000 9:55pm Sherwood OH (later a redhead male) Yellow male gouldian

Bathing Gouldian The second baby fledged October 8, turning into a yellow female .

Here's a Happy Family-- these 3 Gouldians just emerged today June 17, 2002. Dad is on the left, Mom on the right.

Believe it or not, they were raised in a small community aviary 4x1x2 with two other pairs of Gouldians, a pair of Orange Cheeks, a male Owl, and

a male Cordon Bleu-- and the Cordon Bleu did most of the feeding! And this aviary was in the living room with the TV!!!

ZEBRA FINCHES are so easy! What's not to love?! Plus they beep like the beeper in the boardgame "Taboo." Here is a male BlackCheeked Zebra and his wife here at home:

The SOCIETY finches are easily bred, but come in much more plain colors: solid (or self-) chocolate, fawn, or white; or these colors in large blocks of color and white (pied). They can have crests or smooth heads. Their chief advantage: They will raise the young of other finches, as well as their own!

The GRASSFINCHES also come in a smaller variety of colors, but there are species that vary the appearance in small ways, also. T Shafttails, or Longtailed Grassfinches, are identified chiefly by their orange bill. Heck's Grassfinch has a bright coral red beak. Both are Australian in origin. Hybrids of the two are also red-beaked. The Parson Finch is similar but has a black beak. Diggle's Finch looks like a Parson Finch (black-beaked) but has a black rump. See a bird like this with a yellow waxy bill and a mask? You guessed it-- the Masked Grassfinch. White ear patches, but otherwise looks like a Masked? It's a White-eared Grassfinch! :)

OrangeCheek Waxbill

RED BISHOP (I know it's orange!), is a weaver from Africa. Put in some grass and watch him sew and weave a home of his own. This particular one has only one leg due to an unfortunate fight with a Pintailed Whydah I USED to own. Some finches, as small and tiny as they are, do need to be watched for aggressiveness, but for the most part, I group birds together in large aviaries.

my Cordon Bleu or my Cordon Green?

The GOLD-BREASTED WAXBILL. Just beautiful. Just beautiful. Just beautiful.

Other birds housed together here at my home are Zebra finches, bronze-winged mannikins, tri-colored nuns, spice finches, cordon bleus (a bright sky blue color!), Napoleon weavers (yellow instead of orange), Java rice birds (white, fawn, grey, pied), black-masked lovebirds (blue and regular), peach-faced lovebirds (Max and Erma!), Fischer's lovebirds, parakeets, golden song sparrow, orange-cheeked waxbills, red-eared waxbills, red-rumped waxbills, cutthroats, Indian silverbills, St Helena waxbills, and canaries.

The birds live OUTSIDE in the summer.