Aussie Finch Forum

First bird was a hand raised sulphur crested cocky when I was 6 or 7 I think - for some reason it's all I ever wanted - I still recall harrassing Mum. At about 10 or 11 years old I spotted an aviary of budgies at a friend's place and decided I wanted one. I used an old hardwood slat chair and a hardwood pallet as the main building materials - I even recycled screws and nails. It was a nightmare construction as the hardwood was really really hard wood and I was just a tad. Over the years that followed I went mad breeding and showing budgies. I was a junior member of Northside Branch of the BSA when Harry Cooper was active - I recall many BBQs at his joint in Annangrove. Built a set of four aviaries using old paling fence rails - the back wall was our paling fence. 2 avairies for the budgies, one for pigeons and the other for finches. Kept the usual zebs, diamond doves and king quail and a few wild caught Double Bars and Redbrows. Trapping was no doubt illegal even then but I just didn't know and nobody told me. I recall bringing shoeboxes of Double Bars home on the bus from my Uncle's Qld property. Once grown up I've stuck with mainly finches and have tended to build finch aviaries each time life settles down. First home/wife I built large planted aviary with a few cabinets used for gouldians, next home/partner was in the 'burbs and I went mad on gouldians for a few years and now over the last 10 years with current rural home/wife I've gone mental with larger aviaries and heaps of different species.

Wow Sam,is this the last home/ wife or what,what a turbolent life. Craig

crocnshas wrote:Wow Sam,is this the last home/ wife or what,what a turbolent life. Craig

A change is as good as a holiday and i do love holidays.


Dad had lots of birds but i think my first were Peach Face love birds, bred heaps and some nested on the floor when there was no boxes left. Next i had Red Rumps and then my first finches were Diamond Firetails.

crocnshas wrote:Wow Sam,is this the last home/ wife or what,what a turbolent life. Craig

Current wife is behaving exceptionally well presently, so definite keeper.

desertbirds wrote:A change is as good as a holiday and i do love holidays.

Unfortunately changing wives costs a good deal more than a holiday.

Uraeginthus wrote:... read all the Gerald Durrell books I could and can find.

You and Jayburd would get on really well, hes a fan of Durrells too. We visited the Durrell Zoo on Jersey in the Channel Islands in the late 1970's, saying it like that makes it sound such a long time ago.

My start in birds was a pet budgie when I was young. Didnt have birds again till my son was about 10 when he wanted a cockatiel (Spike) then I found an exhausted Zebra finch at the entrance to the local shopping centre. Both lived with us for the rest of their lives. This started me wanting more colourful finches but I thought they would be too delicate.
Fast forward to 2008 and me wanting a "nice aviary to add colour and sound to the garden" and the guys at the local bird place talking me in into getting gouldians, zebras, painteds and canaries and you have the start of my most recent birding activity.
Since then its been a steep leaning curve.

BB Sorry to hear about your "leaning" curve. Hope it straightens out soon so you can get back to bird duties and give up the bell ringing.

so much for spell check!
Currently viewing the forum from Notre Dame

bluebutterfly213 wrote: so much for spell check!
Currently viewing the forum from Notre Dame

Spell check worked...lol you spelt wrong word right

Great topic. My story is similar to many others on here. My interest was sparked as a kid when dad and my older brothers kept birds. We lived in a farm and ded would build aviaries out of any bits and pieces he had lying around. We had lovebirds, budgies, finches, larger parrots and a talking SC Cockie. I think my first birds were a pair of Eastern Rosellas. Then I got my first finch aviary and I suspect like many teen bird-keepers who know no better, I squeezed as many species in there as I could. I think I had seven or eight pairs in a 5' x 5'. Needless to say, nothing bred. I got a girlfriend, then a job and lost time and interest. That was about 15 years ago. I decided about six months ago I would get back into birds. At first I wasn't sure which way to go, particularly given the climate in the NSW Central Tablelands. Well I decided I'd take a gamble and go with finches. Well in six months I have built two aviaries (four flights), have bred King Quail, Zebs, BFPF's and just this week my first clutch of Painteds have fledged. I suspect I'm in it for the long haul this time.

Dad and my older brother kept parrots and budgies before we left Glen Innes when I was seven. Once firmly ensconced in Manly, Sydney I received a baby budgie for my eighth birthday which was promptly swiped from my shoulder and chewed up by our cat in front of me. The neighbour across the road heard my screams and came over with a little chocolate box lined with cotton wool, to lay the remains in, until mum came home from work, at which time we performed a decent Christian burial in the back yard, to which the cat was not invited ( I was a latchkey child which was ok in those days.) A couple of years later, a ten year old, red-headed pagan boy, who needed some guidance, was enrolled in our otherwise, exclusively catholic school and led me astray by teaching me to climb up into factory and bakery roofs to collect pigeon squabs to hand rear. Poor mum took a couple to her work to feed as I was too busy with school. ( I told her that I found them on the street .) Dad, needing very little encouragement, built a pigeon loft and before you could say mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, another two aviaries with finches and three king parrots took up most of the small back yard. Within a couple of years I was keeping Silver-eyes, Bulbuls and hand-raised Indian Mynahs (which used to eat the occasional diamond dove). Also among the collection of lame ducks was a seagull with one wing and a White-faced heron also with a gammy wing. Cost me a fortune in fish. The rest, as they say, is history and has provided me with a lifetime of endless entertainment and wonder. There has probably only been a period of about one year when I have not had birds of some description enhancing my life.