Diamond firetail nests

Includes Species Profile
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Pete Sara
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Joined: 09 Nov 2008, 19:44
Location: Byford WA
Location: eastern suburbs of perth w.a

Hello my fellow finch fenatics, my question is this . Do both male and female build the nest or is the male alone .. thanks pete
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finches247
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Location: Whangarei Northland New Zealand

Both do but Hens do more interior and cocks more strurtural side of nests
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desertbirds
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Location: Alice Springs

Im fairly certain both build .
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VR1Ton
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Joined: 18 Apr 2010, 18:07
Location: Far Nth Coast NSW
Location: Far Nth Coast NSW

As Henry surgested, cocks do the majority of the collecting & construction, & hens do the interior/lining, with the cock again brining most of the materials.
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Pete Sara
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Posts: 2221
Joined: 09 Nov 2008, 19:44
Location: Byford WA
Location: eastern suburbs of perth w.a

The reason why I ask this is , a few years ago I had 6 birds not one built a nest , they seemed to take over old nest from other birds , they even laid eggs. I had them dna sexed all were hens .

Now I have had these birds I currently have (5 in total )for a little while and they all old enough to breed, this should be thier first full breeding season. I think I know what they are as only one has been dna sexed and I can pretty much tell what sex they are by the call . I have one big nest with the entrance tunnel that is obviously a diamond nest , no mistake there. All the others seem to have taken nests that I have made in wire stuffed with medow hay. Now I figure I have 4 hens and one cock bird as after sitting for hours at a time and at one time all in individual boxes , just so I could listen for the calls, so hopefully Iam right and need a few more males....

The other reasons also factored in to this , is one of the birds is well and truly differant from the rest , mainly its upright stance and slightly boofer head, plus its the only one I have seen carring grass at any particular time, so I hope I am right this time..... Pete
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desertbirds
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Joined: 21 Nov 2010, 09:13
Location: Alice Springs

Remember ages ago there was a post about sexing Diamonds that appeared to be accurate.Something to do with the feathers on the black band around the bib.
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Jayburd
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Location: Canberra

yeah Matt posted it... smooth lines in hen, jagged in cocks, near the shoulder
Julian

Birdwatcher and finch-keeper.

Feel free to check out my photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lewinsrail/
And my birding antics here: http://worthtwointhebushbirding.blogspot.com.au/
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spanna
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I've been meaning to get down to poitta's and tell him what he's got, most of his diamonds used to be mine :lol: but should be able to zoom in on them with the camera and accurately sex them by the colour of the beak, as they are mature now. There is always room for error, though with mature birds, I find this way is quite effective. The smooth lines vs jagged lines does work, but I find that diamonds often ruffle each others feathers in a colony, so that can be misleading too!
Image
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Pete Sara
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Joined: 09 Nov 2008, 19:44
Location: Byford WA
Location: eastern suburbs of perth w.a

see thats also anther one spanna, 4 out of the 5 have a rounded blackline , the odd one out has the edge to it if you know what I mean just like the pics from the topic mentioned,. its just that Iam putting all the possible methods in to play and not relying on just a few , the dead give away is the sounds they make and you can see a differance in bill colour in bright light ...only one of the possible hens has both lines at times, all depends on how it sits on the perch.

At the end of the day its me trying to get my head around making the decision to buy more birds in the hope I get the balance right... plus to explain why only one nest . As at the end of last season I had a nest of diamond eggs . One of the birds was showing alot of agro towards a few of the other birds so I removed it , because I had an uneven amount of birds I thought it maybe to many cock birds. Which now I think was the only male and the nest was lost and by the time I realized what was goin on the season was over .

Besides spanna obtaining a few more unrelated might make the gene pool a bit deeper... like everything else at the moment , because I want it we wont be able to find any.... pete
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Buzzard-1
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Location: Narrabri North West NSW
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desertbirds wrote:Remember ages ago there was a post about sexing Diamonds that appeared to be accurate.Something to do with the feathers on the black band around the bib.
Here tis viewtopic.php?f=103&t=5605
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