Aussie Finch Forum

brooksy wrote:I knew it, I could so see WB in those aviarys.

No Brooksy,just giving him food for thought. n Craig

My white eareds have WB's, does that count ?

David, where did your maskeds nest?

Uraeginthus wrote:David, where did your maskeds nest?

They nested in a basket of ti tree on the side wall about 1600mm from the ground. Even though it has often been recorded that they nest on the floor by a lot of people, I have never had a pair nest on the floor, they have always nested arounf this height

firetail555 wrote:My white eareds have WB's, does that count ?

Yes but my WB's don't have WE's but they do come from the same area on the Cape,maybe thats got something to do with it Craig

white eared masks are special. One of my favourites. These birds will be nesting this time of the year in Gulf in the dry season. I have always observed them nesting in different clumps of grasses on my hunting trips. The birds I kept for years always chose to nest in clumps of guinea grass growing in my flights in Townsville. I hope you breed lots more. Cheers

Congrats,......

WE Masks are a great bird.....and offer great challenges ...........Mine also wont take Green Milk Seed..........One pair have just fledged a clutch and it was interesting to note their feeding habits....almost like clockwork

In the days prior/during egg laying they both took a small number of termites each day then backed off to almost none

At 7-12 days they progressively took significant quantities of termites

At 15-20 days they took termites but showed an marked exuberance for green feed, especially Rape leaves......

By the time the young fledged they had reduced their termite intake.........

They have gone down for a a second round but threw one nestling at about 7-10 days old.........I'm not sure whether they still have young.....they're pretty quiet .........I only hear them around 12 days old or thereabouts.....
and the parents have backed off on the termites but take a fair bit of green feed.

Mine nest mostly 40cm - 1m from the ground whilst their roost nests seem to be as high as 1500mm....

I'm interested in hearing others experiences with these fantastic.....and rare....finches