.Just a little back story I live up in Townsville at the moment and we have had a really dry and hot summer to date(normally get some rain early to mid Nov but none this year) and this has proven a little hard to find seeding grasses and such for the birds in the runs and I have had stuff all luck with termite runs into the bush. So I have been giving the birds more then usual mix of chinese cabbage, silver beat and peas+corn to help sub the lack of seeding grasses. While the birds loved it(RFPF esp) I didnt really get much action out of the grass finches like stars and my pair of painteds who just seem to hang out and not do much at all. Now we have just started to get rain last week and over the last week I have clocked about 70-80mm out here where I am and the temps have dropped a little but the humidity has gone up a fair bit.
But the funny thing is the grass finches and all my finches in general are now in nest building mode and my painteds have 1 egg so far. So to date now I have both pairs of RFPF building/nesting, Tri colour eggs about to hatch, painteds on eggs and the stars are chasing each other and showing signs(3 pairs in a colony set up) and my young cuban pair in the flight cage(out of rain and in cover) are looking to nest to....
This has really puzzled me and I think it must have been the rain that set them off, thinking back to birds in the wild not breeding when times are bad weather wise.
Has anyone else had this happen to them or am I just lucky and birds are just being birds and I am just looking to much into it
Would love to hear what you all think
-Michael
