Aussie Finch Forum

Since my last post I had a scratched around and found 4 Weavers nests with multiple eggs in them.
I will keep an eye on them to see what hatches. We have from memory 5 days of over 43c but the last 4 days have been over
46c going by our local weather guroo.All I know it is so hot more and more of the birds are going to ground around the water puddles
from the hoses and staying there.

Hope is well then Eorix, but i wonder if the birds can control the temp of the eggs even with temps that high. I only have a couple of zebs left on eggs and if they are not hatched by the weekend i would say the heat last friday would have killed them. Dad put a temp gauge in his avairies the other day when it was low to mid 40s and he said it was about 50c under the tin covered areas. And that was in Mildura.

Curious as to the breeding season in the wild of these birds would be ?

Just saw this article, scarey stuff! http://www.theage.com.au/environment/we ... z2HNVifK00
For those in the centre of Australia I hope you get through it all ok!

sorry to hear AMCA it was hot today and my zebs made it.

goodluck and best wishes to everyone and there birds this summer

E Orix wrote:Is there any knowledge on what temp an egg needs to reach to kill the embryo.

The only bird that seems to not be bothered are a pair of Crimson Chats,their 3 feathering chicks seem to be fine
and they are even located in a shelter which is hotter than outside.
It will cool and away they will go again I guess.

Funnily enough i was only mentioning today to a West Aussie the value of desert birds to aviculture. If you have look down the list of most commonly kept birds in the world ,quite a few are from our central desert .Zebs , Budgies, Bourkes, Scarlets, Princess, Painteds and the list goes on.As far as finches go you can add a few from the Kimberly that can withstand and even breed in high temperatures. They are oportunistic and its quite often very warm when it rains, in fact it usually is the hottest months that we have rainfall.

The zebby nests under the carport at work are unusally quiet and the best place for bird watching at the moment around the park is near any evap cooler or leaking tap. I also spotted two lizards battling for a position under the ice cream vending machine today.

Just listening to the TV talking about the adding of extra colours to recognise temps over 50 degrees. And they mentioned Alice Springs as having just had a week of 42 average and expecting another week of the same. So the little Desert birds have to be tough and smart.
LML