no drama - i hear what you are saying. in this case it appears something had gone very wrong.
1. on close inspection it appeared it had suffered some type of a head trauma/wound. most likely ventured too close to another diamonds nest.
2. the young one had no food in it what-so-ever so those two factors alone had sealed its fate.
i really don't like posing dead birds but here it is.
i too hate losing rare mutations and i honestly feel some people who read my threads hope i do. i've been in and out of birds for 45 years and i know exactly how the odd bird man thinks. now in your case you were the first to put it to me and i sincerely thank you for your concern and advise. you knew i had something special and i might be waiting weeks for that to happen again.
as for the blues -this time around i have lined up some good quality birds to start things rolling. just last week i found a young blue about 15 days old on the floor. couldn't find out where it came from and placed it in another nest box with 4 young around 10 or 12 days old.
yesterday/today it was flying about with two of its new nest mates so that made my day.
