If you've ever seen birds at a pet store, you've probably heard them talking to each other. Budgies, which are often kept in groups, are almost constantly chirping to each other. But most birds will talk to each other if there is more than one in a cage. This is normal flock behavior, in essence the chatter is a vocal reminder of who belongs to the group, and where they are. Sometimes when Peanut is on my shoulder (or on my head, or on the neck of my turtleneck), he and I make "kissy" noises to each other. It's pretty amazing to be considered part of a bird's flock.

The Finsterium is designed so you can open the entire middle section of the front, or just the bottom third of that middle section. Usually I'll just open that small door, but the Finsters are used to me opening the big door, and these days almost never leave the safety of the Big House. The exceptions were the late Snow Dude, who was curious and bold enough to explore the world around him when I was cleaning, and Sally, who used to get startled by my normal routines much more easily. Of course, when we're trying to catch them, you can never tell where they'll end up, but during daily maintenance, they stay inside.

This morning, along with the normal fresh water and veg, I had a freshly-cleaned seed tower to put into the Finsterium, so I opened the big door. I had placed the seed tower inside, and had gone back to the counter for the water dish, when I heard the sound of a flying bird behind me. It was Decaffeinated! Adventure Bird! I don't ever remember her being adventurous like this, and I expected her to fly right back home, but she didn't. First she sat on Peanut's perch that hangs on the front of the Finsterium, and then she sat on the open door. I had enough time to offer her corn (she didn't take any), get the camera, and take a bunch of pictures. In fact, after about ten minutes of her looking around and all the other Finsters being upset I finally coaxed her back inside. One minute later she was snacking on corn.

You can see the lovely Decaffeinated close up here and here.

Frank had a busy evening. First, he flew down to the perch where Tea was singing his Hunka Hunka Burning Love song and dancing his Hunka Hunka Burning Love dance to Earl Grey. Frank was doing his usual observing — peering over Tea to watch Earl Grey. A little while after that, Tea was singing and dancing to Bosco. Frank flew down to land in between the two Society Finsters, and then he hopped onto Bosco's back! Bosco had not indicated she was interested in mating (with either Tea or Frank), and no actual sex occured, but in every other way, it looked like Frank wanted some cross-species hanky-panky.

That Frank!

I woke up this morning at 5 am — which we all called 6 am just the other day, so it wasn't a bad time to wake up. But I realized that with all the clocks I'd set back to Eastern Standard Time Saturday night and Sunday, I'd forgotten the timers on all the Finster lights. The light over Bob (the ficus tree) goes on first in the morning and turns off last at night, the light over Peanut's house goes on next in the morning and turns off second to last, and the lights over the Finsterium are last and first. More or less. I use inexpensive timers that are almost impossible to set to exact times, so with every change of Daylight Savings the timing goes off by just a bit, particularly when I adjust the timing of the lights to try to coordinate with actual daylight hours.

I stayed in bed for a few minutes, trying to decide if I wanted to try to change the timers, or if I'd even be able to in the dark without disturbing the birds too much. I finally decided to change Bob's and Peanut's lights, but just unplug the timer for the Finsters, since it required climbing underneath the Finsterium, and I wanted to be there as little as possible while everyone was still asleep. Then I went back to bed and dozed, waiting for the birds to get up.

Before the Sunday change, the lights went on shortly before daylight, but now they're set to go on shortly after. I could hear the Finsters waking up with the dawn, but they were a little unsettled, not nearly as noisy as they usually are. Generally, despite dawn, despite Bob's light, despite Peanut's light, they don't get up in full swing until their own light turns on. I waited for the first two lights to go on before I went into the kitchen to set things straight, and wouldn't you know even Peanut was still in his sleepy corner next to his snuggly, waiting for the Finsterium lights to go on before he got up.

Society Finches enjoy sleeping in a nest even if they aren't breeding (and when aren't Societies breeding?), which is why I give them nest boxes even though that can encourage them to breed (and lay too many eggs than is good for the hens). In fact, Society Finsters like to spend time in their boxes during the day, too. Often, all six of mine will pile in together in a four-inch square box — that's why they're called society finches. They pile in and face toward the opening, and we all watch each other. Actually, they seem to get territorial when they're inside the nest boxes, especially when I open the door to take decent pictures of them, and that's why Goober is half out of the box here. There's nothing funnier than the sound of the Societies scrabbling to get out of the box. As you can see, only one can get out of the hole at a time. Maybe I should get a couple of feisty Zebras to chase them around a bit, so they'll lose weight. Click here for a close-up, you can see more birds in the box.

Somebody (um, that would be me) forgot to put the cover back on the container of sunflower seeds, so Peanut got to be a little piggy boy! Obviously, I was watching the whole time, but I let him have a few. I figure in the wild he'd be spending most of his day hunting for snacks, so I try to set up opportunities at home for him to do the same thing. Not usually a full container of sunflower seeds, of course, but still. Peanut the Great Green Hunter.

We're not even close to the Winter Solstice, but we're already down to about 10 1/2 hours of daylight. Plus, Michigan doesn't get much sunlight. So all the birds have been snoozing more, and going to bed early. Peanut wants dinner early, and Warm Toasties by about seven. This cramps even my style a bit! I've started trying to distract him with extra snacks. I know it's cheating, but since Bruce — who probably gives Peanut a few too many tasty seeds — hasn't been around much lately, I figure it's okay. Sort of. It'll be interesting to see how we all adjust to the Daylight Savings change.

There were a few alarms when I first put the new perch in. But Decaffeinated, who, at a porky 20 grams, knows a tasty seed when she sees one, was daintily snacking just a few minutes later. Several Finsters have been observed on the perch, snacking on the F.A.D. throughout the day, sometimes more than one bird at a time. Unfortunately, none of the birds have touched the cuttlefish bone.

I know what you're thinking: Why does she keep torturing her birds? But I haven't figured out a good way to offer cuttlefish bone in the Finsterium; currently I have one just lying on the floor, but the birds usually just move it around when they try to eat it. So, I ordered a new perch through the mail. It's bigger than I realized, but it should do the job. I'll trade it out with the other evil perch so it'll be in a familiar place, and with the Finster Attraction Device, it shouldn't be long before there are birds on it.

It was warm out — at least for Michigan near the end of October — so I got an appointment to take Peanut in to get his wing feathers clipped. When we got home he flew from the travel cage up to the perch in his house, then he flew over to the Finsterium very fast, then he flew back home again very fast, just to prove that he can still fly, thank you very much, and it'd take more than just four feathers clipped on each wing to change that! He gets so full of himself sometimes! Since then, he's flown up a couple of times, landed on my head, dropped from the play gym to the shelf without skidding over the edge (I'd worried about that one a bit); it's as if he didn't get any feathers trimmed at all. But — he hasn't flown any little loops around the kitchen. So I think it did its job.

I smashed up some tofu, put it in the usual dish, and brought it over to the Finsterium. Tea didn't hover this time, but he saw me, left the tasty seeds he'd been snacking on, flew up to a perch, and watched. He was the first to try some tofu, and the rest of the Societies were right behind. Goober is on the left in this picture, and I'm pretty sure that's Tea on the right.

With the exception of lettuce and maybe corn, I've found that if I give the Finsters the same food every day they'll lose interest in it. I think half the fun of food is exploring a new item, which is why I consider food to be a pretty good toy for a Finster.

I offered Peanut some tofu from a spoon. He started squeaking, and proceeded to flick most of the bits off the spoon. Food can be a pretty good toy for Peanut, too, but I still like to think he gets just a few molecules of the substance in him.

Getting all those pictures ready for the previous post took awhile, and although Peanut waited on my shoulder very patiently (I should say, almost unbelievably patiently), I kew I was running late to give him his dinner. Only by about half an hour, though. So when he refused all offers of seed ball snacks, and finally just walked into my hand on top of the tasty seeds, I was pretty surprised. Which would you choose? Dinner, or warm toasties? And here I'd thought the way to Peanut's heart was through oat groats....

For the first time, Peanut hops down from his cage to land on the table. Considering how often he hops down from the play gym to the bookcase these days, I'm not surprised he finally tried it.

After looking around for a bit, he finds some tasty snacks!

Yummy!

That's yummy, too!

Now what to do?

What's over here?

Paper strips! Those are good toys!

Can I get there? I guess not.

What else?

Can I climb up here?

...can't quite reach...

At that point, Peanut flew up to the far side of the bookcase, and landed there. Have I mentioned that somebody needs to get his wings clipped?

Although he got his wing feathers clipped in August, Peanut needs another trimming. His yearly physical always happens right around a molt, so he often quickly loses some of the four outer feathers on each wing that the vet trims. He still has one or two short feathers on each wing, but he has enough control now that he's playing with flying. For example, he'll be on one of the front sections of the Finsterium, and he'll fly a fast little loop in the kitchen and land back on the Finsterium. He's also getting a lot more curious. He knows that the oat groats live on the shelf below his play gym; that's what he's looking at in this photo. I really hope he doesn't try to fly down there since the big bowl of paper strips (toys) sits there, and they'd go everywhere.

I was whirring up zucchini in my tiny food processor wanna-be, and decided to give some to the Finsters, so I put a spoonful on the usual clay-colored dish and took it over to the Finsterium. Tea had been watching me, and was hovering in mid-air in front of the door, waiting. Let me repeat that: Tea was hovering in mid-air in front of the door, waiting for me. Neat! He was the first to check out the diced/grated zucchini, but the other five Society Finsters were right behind him. Yum!

As usual, Frank and Sally weren't interested at all. Except for Evil things, the Societies will check out something new right away. They're very curious birds, but Frank and Sally are timid. It took about a year of being in the Finsterium for the White-headed Nuns to eat anything except seeds. They'd watch the Societies snacking on lettuce, corn, etc. Eventually, they started hopping over to the vegetables, looking closely, and saying "These aren't tasty seeds." After a few months of that, they finally tried them. Now they eat lettuce regularly, an occasional piece of corn, but that's about it besides seeds. Still, not too bad.

I offered Peanut a bit of zucchini in my hand. As usual, he tasted it, and then proceeded to ignore it. But knowing how much he likes to eat food from spoons and things, I offered him the bowl of the food processor. He started squeaking, he grabbed a piece, and flicked it on the floor. After flicking about 20 zucchini bits onto the floor, he got tired of the game, and walked away. I'm hoping he got a molecule or two of vegetable inside of him.

One day I'll get better at using the manual focus on my camera. Until then, these blurry pictures will have to serve as proof of the success of the Finster Attraction Device.



For what they're worth, you can see bigger versions, too: (Click for a bigger look at Goober snacking from the F.A.D.) (Click here for another look at the unknown Tea-bird snacking.)

As these photos show, most of the F.A.D. snack activity has occurred with as little contact with the Evil perch as possible. But occassionally, I have seen a Finster on top of the millet spray, once I saw one actually on the perch, and once a Finster was inside the wire frame of the perch. Unfortunately, only the Society Finsters have been attracted so far. This isn't too surprising, since Frank and Sally are timid. But their toes need the trimming the most. I'll just keep adding fresh millet spray, slowly move the perches higher on the Finsterium walls, and hope for the best.

Shakespeare and Rose Red are proud to announce the arrival of 2 new baby finch buddies. Yes, the wonderful love nest that Shakespeare built for Rose is now the home of two bald, wheezing finch babies.
The proud parents are rotating nest sitting, eating, and barfing for the little ones. Our big hope is that the new ones share the interesting markings of Shakespeare complemented by Rose's beautiful color.

The first baby hatched yesterday, and the second hatched this evening just after a set of what turned out to be unfocused photos were taken. While trying to edit the bad pictures, a great commotion and new sounds came from the nursery. The pictures you see here were taken after the second blessed event. Click here to see a bigger picture of the proud parents.

More good news (I hope). There looks like there may be a couple of eggs waiting to hatch. I'm not counting finches before they hatch yet, but I'd like to see lots of baby finch buddies! Mom and dad may be a wee bit more reserved given they are the ones who have to do the parental duties. The happy family is getting a good diet of nestling food, and I hope that Rose continues to do well.

The saga continues......

Fizzy's wife reports: I was tidying up in the bird room when I couldn't resist a peak in the nest...

ONE TEENY TINY BABY BIRD (and 4 more eggs) in Rose and Shakespeare's nest!

At 5:13 p.m. EDT, Tea Finster was observed snacking on the Finster Attraction Device. In fact, he was on the F.A.D., and very carefully not on the Evil perch. No matter, this is the first step to trimmed toenails.

On another whim, I moved the Evil concrete perch with the F.A.D. attached so that the perch is about an inch and a half from the floor of the Finsterium. This way, the Finsters should be able to stand on the floor, reach up, and get the tasty seeds. They won't even have to touch the Evil concrete perch. Maybe, just maybe, they will learn that the concrete perch isn't evil, after all.

Of course, there are no takers yet.

Oh a whim, Bruce moved the Evil concrete perch with the F.A.D attached from the left side of the Finsterium, to the middle of the back. We thought this new location might prove more attractive to the Finsters. Unfortunately, there are still no takers. Only a bit of the Too New! syndrome was observed, but it's clear that it would be pretty easy to mess with these little bird's heads. While that seems potentially entertaining for about 3 seconds, it seems very cruel right after that. They're awfully sweet, really, and I'd hate to turn into an Evil Bird Goddess.

One must be very careful when tiny little lives are totally dependent upon you.

Peanut has a homemade play gym that sits on the top shelf of the bookcase next to his house. He can interact with the gym in several different ways, which makes it a really great toy. Some of the ways he plays with the gym include snacking on oat groats. He's just discovered that he can drop down from the swing to the shelf and snack on the groat squeezins that have fallen down. I hear a little "thump," he slides a little on the smooth shelf so he flaps his wings a bit, sending groat bits everywhere, and then he starts hunting for the big pieces. In case you were wondering: birds can chirp and squeak, and eat, at the same time.

It has now been some 60 hours since the insertion of the Finster Attraction Device, and there has been no activity on the concrete perch. Millet spray is the most attractive item that I can think of to Finsters, but it remains untouched. Now, the good news is they're back on that side of the Finsterium. In fact, the nearest perch to the F.A.D. has become the favorite spot to sit, preen, sing and dance, and look longingly toward the Oh So Tasty Seeds. So maybe, if I can just be a little more patient, I will soon see evidence of seed snacking. If not, I may just have to cut down on other food in the Finsterium. That should make the F.A.D particularly Attractive.

I don't know if I could go that far....

Since there have still been no direct observations of Finsters on concrete perches, I have decided to take some serious measures. This photo is one of the actual concrete perches, with the new modification.



Photo description:

• A — Finster Attraction Device, in the form of millet spray. Hopes are high that these Oh So Tasty Seeds will prove to be irresistable to the subjects, and lure them to use the concrete perches.
  
  
• B — Toe Protection, in the form of hot glue. Finster toes are quite delicate, so a thick band of hot glue was used to protect them from all fittings.
  
  
• C — Nail and Beak Trimming Apparatus. The purchased perch.
  
  
• D — Gravity-Defying Wire, in the form of re-imagined coat hangers.
  
  
• E — Wire Spacer, in the form of a wooden dowel.
  
  
• F — Perch Attachment Equipment, in the form of wing nuts and washers. This equipment came with the perch, and is now used to secure the wire to the perch.
  
  
• G — Attraction Device Holder (2). These plastic-coated wires secure the Finster Attraction Device to the concrete perch.

It has now been about two hours since the re-insertion of the concrete perch to the Finsterium. The Finsters once again succumbed to the Too New! syndrome, and for the most part have decided to stay away from that side of the Finsterium for the rest of their lives. The one exception is Decaffeinated who, at a porky 20 grams, knows a tasty seed when she sees one. She got very, very close, but so far, the Finster Attraction Device has not worked.

Rose Red is the lovely daughter of Guy and Rom, finch buddies adopted from the Finster Girl Finsterium. Guy and Rom also gave birth to two other wonderful finchlets: Snow White, and Cindy Rella.



Shakespeare is an adopted child, saved from the loneliness of a pet store where he languished in a cage surrounded by lizards and fish. The name Shakespeare was given to him because of his beautiful, multicolored plumage [pied mutation] and his lovely, multitonal "hunka — hunka — love" song. (Click here to see Shakespeare close up.)

Although they could hear each other, and admired each other from afar, Rose and Shakespeare never met. Expanding her horizons, Rose visited the original family homestead at the Finsterium to see family friends. Unfortunately a death in her extended family hastened her return home. When she returned home, she secluded herself for a couple of weeks to recover from the loss. After this mourning period she rejoined the flock and rekindled her affection for Shakespeare. (Click here to see Shakespeare and Rose Red close up.)

They quickly established a new home, and began to consider a family. Shakespeare has been a wonderful provider. He has already made a well-bedded and feathered nest in which Rose has layed several eggs. The proud and protective future parents (we hope) have guarded the nest closely so an exact egg count hasn't been possible. We're all hopeful for new finchlets. The careful mom Rose has really increased her calcium intake so we are confident that these eggs have a chance. Unfortunately, Guy and Rom had difficulties with their first few clutches of eggs, so we've been careful in our optimism.

Today Sally was on a perch, opening and closing her beak very quickly. There might have been a quiet clicking sound, hard to tell. Meanwhile, Frank was on the perch next to her, hopping up and down. I had no idea Frank has a Hunka Hunka Burning Love dance! I had never observed this before. Animal Planet has shown a clip of a Gouldian finch dancing his Hunka Hunka Burning Love dance. Two very colorful finches sitting on the edge of a dish, and the male is hopping up and down — but he's really hopping. The Gouldian must hop close to an inch in the air. Frank didn't jump that high, those big feet and toes of his barely left the perch. But it was a dance, all right! Sally was clearly interested, but the two didn't mate. It's definitely Fall here in Michigan. I wonder if it's Spring in the Malaysian Penninsula, and Frank and Sally's hearts have turned to love? Maybe that's why they're so interested in the Society Finster's antics.

Bosco started doing a little hopping dance on a perch, she was squeaking a little, and then she squatted down on the perch and vibrated her tail up and down. These are all signs to males that she is ready to mate. Tea was watching the whole while, singing snippets of his Hunka Hunka Burning Love song, and he hopped right over to her and on top of her back when she started vibrating her tail. The actual mating act between Society finches is pretty quick, but still, Bosco and Tea weren't quick enough. Sally (of all birds) flew down to the perch to watch, then Frank flew down to watch, and Bosco and Tea, flanked by White-headed Nuns, stopped what they were doing and went off to do something completely different.

Today was broccoli day, and wouldn't you know, Peanut actually ate some when I offered him a floret by hand — several bites, in fact! I think he was acutally eating it, too, and not simply looking for seeds inside the little flower buds. Of course, the piece I left in his food dish got tossed onto the floor. While the Finsters eat the florets, they seem to like the stems even more. A big stalk of broccoli, stem peeled to reveal the softer flesh inside, becomes a nice snack, and climbable toy rolled into one.

Preening is a very important grooming activity for birds, they do it every day. They arrange feathers by drawing each one through their bill, they lubricate them with a fatty substance secreted by the preening gland (just above the base of the tail), and they remove any soft sheaths from pin feathers. Any feathers they can't reach with their beak they will scratch with their toes. Finsters will also preen each other, especially in spots they can't reach themselves by beak. This is called allo-preening, and is usually done by mated pairs. This is an important bonding behaviour. These photos were taken awhile ago by Fizzy. I think that this is the late Chocolate preening her offspring Bosco, but I don't know who the tea bird is.

Peanut eats reasonably well. He's not too interested in vegetables, fruit, or healthy people food. When I offer him something new, he usually tastes once, and then ignores it for the rest of his life. Most of the time things like broccoli or peas become toys: he tosses them out of his food dish to get to other things. Bread gets quickly turned into crumbs — I used to make him pancakes with hulled millet inside, so he's really just looking for tasty seeds. He does eat corn, but lately he just wants the tiny little heart that's inside the kernel. He likes it when I squish the individual kernels so he can get to that bit more easily. Frankly, I don't have a whole lot of patience for this (...which is a little surprising, considering all the other things I do for him). His diet consists of about equal parts crumbles, seed balls, and other stuff.

• Crumbles: Pellets are the dried dog food of the bird world, designed to be the perfect food for your pet bird. Being small, Peanut eats the "crumble" size. He has always enjoyed the Roudybush brand. Once I tried him on an organic brand, but he didn't like it. Roudybush has both low-fat and regular versions available, currently I'm mixing them half and half. Crumbles are always available in Peanut's house, plus they'll be available on the play gym I'm building (if I ever get around to finishing it). I discovered awhile ago that crumbles actually taste better from a spoon, but you can see from the photo that they taste the best straight from the jar. Click here to see a bigger picture of Peanut eating crumbles from a jar.
• Seed Balls: Lafeber's Nutri-Berries are tasty seeds and things, coated with vitamins and minerals, and rolled into balls. They are also designed to be the perfect food for you bird. Peanut gets the cockatiel size, but since he's about a third the size of a cockatiel, I have to hold the ball for him to eat. This is a nice bonding experience that I read about when I first got him, although I never dreamed that Peanut would train me to do this twice a day.
• Other stuff: He gets about 1/4 of a teaspoon of soft wheat berries (grains) (soaked in water for 24 hours) every day. He also gets...a lot...of oat groats every day. These are toys, as much as snacks. He also gets some sunflower seeds every day. Since these are very high in fat, he probably shouldn't get as many as I actually give him. We're trying to cut down.
• Other other stuff: Every other day, both Peanut and the Finsters get some soaked seeds. The seeds are a nice finch mix that I soak for about 36 hours. Soaking the seeds until they just start to get roots increases the nutritional value dramatically — but don't soak them any longer. (Michael Marcotrigiano has a good fact sheet about sprouting seeds, as does Carol Heesen.) Peanut also gets a daily assortment of vegetables, parsley, and other tasty things that he can toss out of his food dish.

I gave up trying to teach Peanut tricks long ago, but he's pretty good at teaching them to me. The walking down my arm trick is a pretty good one; I almost have it right. Yesterday evening it was about time for warm toasties, so I held my arm out. He walked about half-way down, thought about it, and walked back up my shoulder. Then he walked down to my elbow again, thought about it, and walked back to my shoulder. Finally, he walked down to my elbow. But I had it all wrong, since by this time I was already sitting on the couch. From the inside of my elbow, he looked over to my left hand. He looked back up at my face, and then looked over to my left hand. I knew what he was thinking: "Why should I walk all the way down to her right hand, when she could easily scoop me up in her left hand and place me into it, with no more work on my part?" So that's what I did.

I got it right today: He walked from my shoulder to my hand, where I promptly gave him snacks.