Aussie Finch Forum

Well I am writing this heartbroken . We were at Central coast Saturday night babysitting Sunday morning my neighbors rang to say there are little finches flying around everywhere. We live Sutherland shire and there was terrible winds my aviary is 30 ft long and has been there for 15 yrs the wind shifted it off the foundations and out of 62 finches 45 got out. Neighbors were wonderful trying to get them but as we live across the road from bush most of them flew there where the bigger birds chased them . I managed to get 2 male Orange Breasted back and 1 Red Parrot finch. There were 5 baby Red Parrots in nest have dad but mum got out.
I lost all my Red Browed most of my Orange Breasted, Ruddies, Double Bar ,Stars ,Red Parrot finches . Was upsets me the most is I never split up my pairs done of them have been together for 7 years.
These birds gave me so much pleasure watching them built their nest raise their babies. As other bird lovers you can imagine how I feel.

So sorry to hear. All you can do is make the avairy as secure as possible. Put out small cages with seed, and hope that some of the finches survived and come home to their mates. Because that is one of the advantages of long established pairs, if they can they will return. Good luck with what remains, and having a few stragglers return.
LML

How have the remaining birds settled? Did you get any stragglers return? Hope you have had a better start to the New Year than you had an end to the old.
LML

Oh my goodness, reading this is heartbreaking. I’m so sorry this happened.

I just returned from a 1 night family holiday to find tragedy in the aviary, with their food bowl waterlogged from the mammoth amount of 9 birds dead.

These are:
Male Ruddy
Female Ruddy
Male Painted
Female Painted
Male Parrot Finch
Female Parrot Finch
Male Star
Male Orange Breast (which we still haven’t found)

Thanks
Aidan

Did it rain overnight? A sad lesson in how to position food bowls where they will not get wet. And why a 2nd food bowl is a pretty good idea.
LML

Well, I thought about it, and we got absolutely hammered by 3 storms that night, so they may have died of shock from the storm.

Thats really crap mate, sorry to hear
By the sounds of it, they must have been battered up by the storm, birds won't die that easily for that amount of time with no food.
Maybe they must have died of shock, or, can the really heavy wind and rain get in
Might be an idea to review your setup and possibly put some perspex up or something to protect them.
The thing I am wondering, is how the Gouldians did not die
Thanks
Noah Till

It’s just a miracle the Gouldians didn’t die. I think part of the reason is that our neighbours are renovating (which has been delayed 3 months) and the builders haven’t made the fence yet, so the western side is completely open to the elements, as well as the northern side (the open flight area), so the storm (which came from a north-westerly direction) probably killed them all.

You can buy yourself some PVC sheets from Bunnings
I put a few onto my new aviary, and they really do the job well, and you can see through really clearly
The largest size is $45 a sheet, but at least it would be a handy investment, preventing say $145 worth of birds getting killed
Thanks
Noah Till