Unexpected danger!

[Jessica]

Okay this is freaky. Brother's room has pair of Gouldians and he was watching Ipad and it had a bald eagle swooping down on a rabbit and the finches freaked out! The cage is solid wood top and both sides but they freaked so badly that they rammed into the wires back and forth, back and forth. He thought they would die! He stopped the video immediately and ... get this ...

the finches cowered in the corner and stared out and up like the eagle was in the room with them. It took hours before they relaxed again and only when mom used her iphone and played a YT video sound of gouldians happily singing. During their freak-out, they hit the cage so hard back and forth it is a wonder they didn't break their necks!

Go figure! Brother said he would wear headphones from now on but geez ... totally unexpected. Also dad mentioned that he had turned on a ceiling fan in our living room last night and the birds in the large flight acted like they thought it was a predator bird overhead. That flight has back and both sides covered and most of top. These birds are from Florida and there are a lot of bald eagles in Florida and they are strong predators. Anyway, just wanted to warn anyone new to housing birds about this potential danger.

[finchbreeder]

I still remember selling some Zeb finches to some people a number of years back and starting the usual check questions. Got brushed off with the "we've had all sorts of birds before we know what to do." Couple of days later they are back demanding I replace the dead birds.
I asked a lot of questions and acertained they had put finches into an open (no brush cover and only top and one side solid) avairy with a small flock of weerios (cockateels flying round)
They got told! I had been asking about the situation they were going into and you brushed me off - these birds were terrified to death. Always acertain what they do and do not know and will and will not accept. They then apologised and asked to buy more.
I refused to deal with them again.
This is why hanging CDs out to frighten off cockies is more effective than a plastic or stone hawk on the playing fields of Aust. Drones are even better, but less practical ( sitting round flying drones 8hrs a day)
Movement (particularly if it looks anything like a birdy predator) is more frightening than an imobile object of any kind.

[Jessica]

Well said, Finchbreeder! We knew 'no running' by the cage and no yelling around them but we didn't anticipate National Geographic would do it to them particularly indoors! We had read up about 'no scented candles' and something about teflon killing them (do they still make teflon any more and it was on my mom's social media feed so not sure if it was true) but brother's Ipad isn't loud at all. We also had put air filters in every room where finches reside just in case.

Lesson learned! Thank you!

[finchbreeder]

The noise part of the ipad is probably not a problem - large tree in the back yard just self pruned the equivalent of a small tree last night - and no problems.
They also deal with thunder storms and my living not far from a major highway with constant road train noise.
But movements that could be predatory - because most predator birds are silent stalkers. That's why the fan was a threat