Aussie Finch Forum

mattymeischke wrote:Wow, Tintola, I think I want to be you when I grow up...
Wompoos, Sacreds....

Do you have an opening for an acolyte?

Do tell: do they need lots of live invertebrates with the odd frog, or are they happy with dead fish?
Do they need running water nearby (as I have heard said)?

Looking forward to those photos......

Don't forget the bee eaters ;)

Sacreds are a land based kingfisher ie. they live on grasshoppers, lizards, beetles and almost anything else that moves on land. However they are adaptable and on Norfolk Island and other shoreline and estuary habitats they hang around the shore at low tide and catch small fish, crabs etc from the rock pools. Mine are maintained during the non-breeding season on chopped roo mince, chopped pilchards and a few mealies and crickets. During the breeding season I too use copious amounts of Gambusias (mosquito fish) firstly so that the hen lays a good number of eggs with no problems and secondly to ensure good rapid growth of the chicks.(up to 60 to 80 fish per day when feeding chicks) That is where I have been today,catching them for the next week. Photos of KFs tomorrow.
P.S. If you want to see what I keep, go to "Introduce yourself" March 2011... Oh here it is.


> Tintola on 08 Mar 2011, 22:03

I found this site by default on another bird forum and I can see already that it is much more friendly than that one.
I keep a few finches but I am mainly interested in softbills
Here is a list of the birds that I keep and usually breed.
Splendid,Torquoise and Red Backed Wrens.
Pigeons,(purple crowned,rose crowned,wompoo,spinifex,squatter, brush bronze-wings, brown ,white headed, green winged, new guinea ground, bleeding heart, and diamond and talpacotti doves)
Musk lorikeets,hooded parrots, scarlet chested parrots, plum-head parrots, regent bowerbirds, satin bowerbirds, sacred kingfishers, crimson chats, Pekin robins, bulbuls, blackbirds, song thrush, stone curlews, silvereyes, glossy starlings, yellow throated scrub wrens, golden and lady amherst pheasants, scarlet honeyeaters, rainbow bee-eaters, buff banded rails, noisy pitta,
grenadier and Madagascar weavers, Gouldian's and a few other finches and canaries.
Hoping to be able to chat with bird people with similar interests.

cannot type - am struck dumb!

Jayburd wrote:

mattymeischke wrote:Wow, Tintola, I think I want to be you when I grow up...
Wompoos, Sacreds.... DID I SAY THAT I HAD GROWN UP?

Do you have an opening for an acolyte? ALREADY HAVE ONE!

Do tell: do they need lots of live invertebrates with the odd frog, or are they happy with dead fish? NO, SEE ABOVE.
Do they need running water nearby (as I have heard said)? NO.

Looking forward to those photos......

OK. TOMORROW

Don't forget the bee eaters ;)

HOW COULD I, THEY ARE SO DEMANDING!

Tintola wrote:DID I SAY THAT I HAD GROWN UP?

Dear Sir,
I had no intention of offending with the implicit accusation that you had grown up.
It is with solemn regret that I have recently noticed, approaching my fifth decade, that I seem to have grown up a bit somewhere along the line. I am hoping that there may be some way to reverse this, but if I ever am really fully grown up I might have sufficient wherewithal to care for these demanding and beautiful creatures.

Yours in cowed obesiance,
mm.

A couple of years ago i visited a large Softbill collection in California.
One section housed Sun Bittens and numerous Kingfishers.
Quite beautiful but you really needed a cloths peg to put on your nose.
That section smelt like a fish market during a heatwave, it was then that I decided fish eating softbills were not my number
one choice.

A single pair in a planted aviary open to rain and the odd watering doesn't smell. But the nest box after fledging...... that is putrid. Any wonder that the young want to leave it.

A single pair in a planted aviary open to rain and the odd watering doesn't smell. But the nest box after fledging...... that is putrid. Any wonder that the young want to leave it.

Matty.. I tried "growing up" once but I didn't like it, too many restrictions.

Tintola wrote:A single pair in a planted aviary open to rain and the odd watering doesn't smell. But the nest box after fledging...... that is putrid. Any wonder that the young want to leave it.

Matty.. I tried "growing up" once but I didn't like it, too many restrictions.

I refuse to 'grow up' out of principal - nobody else I associate with daily seems to have done it so why should I. Mind you I stay at home most days with 3 under 6 so that could influence my associations a little, apart from that I occasionally catch up with Jeff. Oh, crap - I'm doomed.