While all finches are social creatures, they usually only spend time with birds of their own kind. For the most part, this has also been the case in the Finsterium. The exception are the Society Finsters, who are very friendly, and have been known to literally take other kinds of birds in under their wing. In fact, many finch breeders keep Societies around to raise the babies of any species that doesn't raise chicks well on their own.

Now, Frank's foot really is much better, so don't think I'm getting morbid or anything. But Frank and Sally have been apart for a long time now, with Frank away in the hospital cage, so I've been doing a bit of thinking about how they'd do if one of them actually died. They've been together for a little over five years. Any "replacement" I could get — and you don't see White-Headed Nuns available very often — would probably be a very young bird, which might not be a good match for the mature Frank and Sally.

The good news is that Frank already shows interest in the Societies. All that fascination with Tea and Earl Grey's Hunka Hunka Burning Love action suggests that he at least knows that the Society finches are birds, even if he wouldn't consider them to be companions.

With Frank out of the Big House for so long, I'm now beginning to believe that Sally thinks the same thing. When Frank is around, she's usually within six inches of him. Now that he's away, she's started to spend time with the Societies — at least, when they're eating. If they're all down eating seeds, she'll fly down and eat with them. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that I've seen her fly down to check out pepper seeds with them. Mind you, Sally doesn't eat the pepper seeds — they're not spherical enough, or actual millet, for that matter. But she was down on the ground, with the flock, checking things out.