Aussie Finch Forum

It has happened quite a few times even to mewith my rarer finches..
Maybe its the approach the rare bird is sitting on a no value egg so dont worry about it and you don't fuss as well.
Being left alone does wonders
While I am in this section,last weekend I was in the Batemans Bay area and driving through some heavy vegitated area there was a "large "
pigeon on the side of the road. It looked like a youngish White Headed Pigeon. Are they located in the area or was it another specie.

It could be a White-headed as it is within their range, just, but more likely to be a Wonga as they are more likely to be seen as a solitary bird, whereas White-headeds tend to be seen as a flock at this time of year.

The bird had a darkish body could have been grey or grey/green. Its head and neck was a dirty white or light grey I guess.

Sounds more like a White-headed. Google them both and see which one matches.

In reference to Tintola's story:

My brother-in-law on the Sunshine Coast has a nest box mounted to the side of his garage with a video camera attached & connected to his TV/DVD recorder.
The first year a pair of kookaburras laid in it, the eggs hatched but the chicks died at hatch;
The next year they hatched, one chick made it to 6 days & died. The 3rd year 3 chicks hatched but all were dead within 3 weeks. The youngest chick was killed by its older siblings, then the second chick was killed by its sibling, then the eldest died.

It took 4 years of nesting attaempts before they successfully fledged a chick. You should have seen what the parents brought back to feed the chicks- bluetongues and other reptiles almost bigger than the chicks but they managed to swallow them.

The point is that it takes time for some pairs to perfect their parenting skills. Most aviculturists, particulalry parrot breeders, are not prepared to take this risk and so take all the eggs for incubation/hand-rearing. The end result is pairs with reputations of not being able to raise their own young, but never being given the chance to learn. These days there is an overabundance of many of these species so we should give them the chance to "fail & learn".

Having said that, it is very hard to do this with rare species, particulalrly with parents which have a poor track record.

So I ask myself: "why do we do this too ourselves- keep birds I mean?" Collecting bird books & bird watching are a lot less stressful!!!!

Well myzo to answer the question in my opinion what would we do if we didn't do this? Unfortunately in this hobby/obsession we have to have bad with good or we will just get bored if its good all the time. Through bad times or decisions is when we learn as most people and myself can't take good advice all the times and its when the bad hits is when the good advice then sinks in. Is interfering a bad thing well I believe that's how we have been able to learn new skills such as hand rearing fostering so it all has its up and downs.

Very true Danny.
Too much success with no setbacks would be boring. At times, we just would like the scales tipped a little more in our favour!

Lessons learnt the hard way through failure or heartbreak tend to stay in our memories the longest and as you say sometimes it's the only way you can put everything you have learnt into perspective.

I would never want to be without birds, despite my tongue-in-cheek comment to the contrary!

I believe that once they get in our hearts they're there to stay. Have to agree that the scales can sometimes be in favour of bad than good and would like the scales tip to other side more often.

How're the bubs going??

They are going great J , I missed a really good photo op today with the 2 bubs either side of dad on the perch so this all you can get for now . the fledge relatively tiny compare to other doves I have had... pete