More begging baby birds

Zebra Finch Fledglings

I happened upon a tape with a lot of “fledgling feed-me’s” on it. This must have been years ago when my indoor population explosion was just getting underway. I had zebra finches and budgies reproducing. The zebra finches tended to build nests anywhere and I caught them double-clutching a couple times early on before I figured out how to discourage such behavior, so that might explain why the zebra finch children are so loud, there must have been a lot of them. They are at what you might call full-fledged volume (sorry), the decibels having increased with age. When they start out as hatchlings, they sound like someone is quietly shaking a box of pins.

Zebra Finch Hen on Nest

The budgie begging is somehow not quite as raucous, it’s rather pleasant. It’s hard to tell what effect my tortured reading through Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier had on the birds’ future vocalizations.

Recording of Zebra Finch and Budgie Fledglings Begging in Key

On the recording, the zebra finch fledglings have just started in after I finished practicing the C# major fugue (they came in earlier but I decided to spare you), right before the C# minor prelude. Then shortly after they subside you can hear a little trilling chorus of budgie babes.

A clutch of budgie nestlings

Getting Into Everything

Paper Towels, the Perfect Nesting Material

Because I suspected my zebra finches really liked the drip from the kitchen faucet I was about to replace, I shot a video clip of a couple little guys bathing before I got the new faucet installed. There was probably a slow drip for a long time, but the past few weeks the drip never stopped so I had to get it fixed. I was collecting dripping water overnight to use for the birds but I couldn’t get it all, filling up more than a half gallon pitcher by morning.

My finches all bathe in a pie-plate bath on top of the middle finch cage, but the zebra finches like to take a bath in my breakfast dishes after they’ve been soaking in the sink all day while I’m at work. The routine when I get home is to open the kitchen door and the zebras call and go sailing right in over my head into the kitchen and sit on the pot rack, waiting for turns dipping their heads in my glass full of water.

In short, anything that exists in the house is fair game for these birds.

Rolled up rug to explore