The Yellow Wing Pytilia – (Pytilia hypogrammica) seems to be the closest relation to the Red Faced Red Winged Pytilia, so close in fact that many arguments have formed over whether or not it is actually a separate species.

There are several schools of thought on where the Red Faced Red Winged Pytilia came from. Some believe that it is a colour mutation of the Yellow Wing Pytilia, and therefore does not warrant being known as a separate species.

Others believe that because of the closeness of the natural range of the Yellow Wing Pytilia and the Red Winged Pytilias, the Red Faced Red Winged Pytilia is a hybrid of the two species.

The third theory is that it is in fact a unique species. The Red Faced Red Winged Pytilia is referred to as Pytilia hypogrammica lopezi, but information regarding the source of this classification is not that clear.

In Australian Aviculture the Yellow Wing Pytilia is the rarer of the Pytilias and probably the hardest to breed. The Red Faced Red Winged Pytilia is more common and easier to breed but still a delightful bird.

I have always regarded the Red Faced Red Wing as a separate species, although could not confidently back this up with scientific facts. I would like to think it was a separate species and with my experience in breeding both species there does seem to be differences between the Yellow Wing and the Red Faced Red Wing.

Because of the limited number of exotic bird species that we have here in Australia, it would be nice to keep them as two separate species. If anyone has an opinion on this matter or any related readings, please leave us a comment.

Star Finch

(neochmia ruficadua)

Found across Northern Australia from the Pilbara, Western Australia to Cape York. The Star Finch species is well established in Australian aviculture. Although there are probably several sub-species of this finch, the birds we keep are probably a mixture of some from the west and some from the east.

These birds are in the easy to keep and breed category; fairly cheap, readily available and compatible with most finches.

The normal star finch has a red head including beak and red barring on the tail with olive wings. The first mutation was the yellow-head star finch having the red on both head; beak and tail replaced by yellow, but retained the olive wings. The fawn star finch can have either the red head and tail or yellow-head and tail, but the wings are fawn in colour.

Habitat:

Star Finches are said to be found around creeks and waterways in the reeds and grasses that grow around them. This species is definitely a lover of this type of habitat, as in the aviaries they love to feed on the long grass seed stems of the green panic and other types of aviary grasses. If I throw green panic heads on the wire on top of the flight the stars will hang from the wire and feed on and also pull through the seed heads. Not all finches can do this, but it is also one of the first birds to land on the grass seed heads if thrown on the floor of the aviary.

Sexing:

The pairs are easily sexed as the star finch hen has very little colour under the chin even in well-coloured hens. The cock if looked at towards the beak has a very round circle of colouring from the forehead right around to the neck.

Breeding season:

Birds breed from February until November, but young fledged in the early part of the year do not fully colour until October/November, much the same as the gouldian finch. You will need some room to hold the juveniles for several months until they colour, because usually the good ones are bred early in the season, being the first young of new pairs, or fresh young of older pairs.

Nesting:

They like to build their own nest with usually fine grasses and green panic seed heads and lined with feathers, either in the aviary brush or in the grass or shrubbery growing in the flight. They build a very neat smallish oval upright nest with the entrance halfway up the side. Both sexes incubate the eggs and when approached the bird will stay in the nest with their face at the entrance hole to the last minute.

Feed:

Standard finch mix. They love soaked or sprouted seed. Will take boiled egg, live food when rearing young, but not necessary, but as much seeding grasses as possible.

My Experiences in Breeding Star Finches:

I have always kept star finches as part of my general collection. These are definitely one of my favourite species of finches and I have always tried to maintain good strains of quality birds.

I have kept the red stars continually from 1982 when I lived at my first house in Lennox Head right up until now at Broken Head. Since those early days I have not introduced any normals, only one yellow fawn cock bird and two red fawn hens. I keep normal and fawn in both red and yellow head colours.

There has always been the argument about cinnamon star finches versus fawn star finches, but no-one seems to be able to accurately point out the difference. The birds I refer to as fawns I do so because 15 or more years ago a breeder gave me, as he called it “a yellow fawn cock bird” and the following year gave me two red fawn hens. All the offspring from these birds have been recessive and not sex-linked.

I use normal red-faced stars as a base bird and breed these birds to yellow-head or fawns to produce split birds. These split birds are put back to normal yellow-heads and fawns in either colour. I have always believed that it is necessary to keep breeding back to normal red-faced stars because continual breeding of mutation to mutation will definitely weaken and diminish the quality of the species. If the birds are good enough I will breed yellow to yellow or fawn to fawn, but the following year I will put those juveniles back to the normal red-faced. In the last couple of years the fawns have been some of the better birds I have bred, but I will still put these back to normals.

When selecting birds for breeding either in cock birds or hens, I look for the obvious birds that have the most size, type and head colour. With this I look for good star patterning and richness of chest yellow. The hens, I choose by the amount of colour on the face because with the stars the more head colour the rest follows. The birds with the most head colour will be the better birds and more likely to produce the better offspring. I have seen some star finches particularly the reds that not only have the red on the face, but red below the face on the chest. I have always regarded this as a fault and don’t think it is desirable – my personal opinion.

Hello. I am enquiring about purchasing some gouldian finches but have been informed that it is too cold to keep/breed them in an outdoor aviary in Sydney. I would appreciate your opinion. Thank you.

My first thought was to say try it and see. But this may not be the best answer, as disaster could follow.

If I was going to offer advice, as I live here on the North Coast of New South Wales, it is a bit hard to say what would be good for finches kept in Sydney.

I started my finch keeping in Sydney, keeping Western Australian Longtail Finches and Masked Finches in an outside aviary, but never Gouldian Finches.

I know for a fact that there are breeders in Sydney that keep and breed Gouldians successfully, but I am not as sure about the types of housing that these bird breeders use.

The best advice that I could give is to contact the local bird society or finch club and talk to the breeders that live in your local area.

By talking to members of bird clubs, you find out who the successful breeders are, and you can visit them and see how they do it. They will give you the tried and tested knowledge that I can only give to breeders in my local area.

There is nothing like visiting successful breeders and looking at what they have built and listening to what they have done to become successful a breeder.

Good Luck, and Let us know what you find out.

The example is that if you have five pairs of a particular species in an aviary at the end of the year do you really know

• what has bred,
• what has had two or three nests,
• how many young has a particular pair bred,
• and what has not bred.

If you breed single pairs of species per aviary you know exactly what has happened in a particular season.

The most likely scenario for people who breed a colony of a particular species with another colony of species is hybridization. If you lose the odd bird from one species and the odd bird from another species, the likelihood of these odd birds pairing with the other odd birds is far greater and the unwanted hybrids will come from these pairings. If you breed single pairs and you lose one bird of a pair you know this very soon and are able to rectify the situation by providing a new partner or removing the odd partner.

If you lose a particular bird, do not be afraid to introduce a new partner because pair bonding only lasts until a new partner is introduced. A lot of people say finches pair for life, this is not true, as I have found in my experience if a bird is healthy and fit and loses its partner, it does not spend the rest of its life alone but will take the first mate that comes along.

Finches all over the world usually are a flock bird from just a few pairs to maybe flocks of hundreds or even thousands. If in the flock situation, a hawk or another predator attacks that flock and kills a bird, does the surviving partner of that bird take a new mate or does it not. I say it does.

In addition to this, if you have a particular pair that are bonded but are not breeding for example they may not be laying fertile eggs or just not really compatible, if you break that pair and put them with new partners this will be okay as long as you move the original pair as far away from each other as possible because an adjoining flight is not far enough. They will still sit side by side at the wire, but removed from each other and given new partners this will almost certainly prove fruitful for at least one of the pair. You will then be in a position to work out which of the birds was the problem as far as breeding goes.

In the single pair situation if a species breeds it is then up to the breeder as to how long the birds stay in with the parents. Early in the season I choose to take the young out of the aviary at least after the second nest has flown. This is obviously long enough for the birds to be with their parents as the parents’ attention goes to the new brood. It is not really a matter of 5-6 weeks as a standard, but when the parents have fledged the second nest. Towards the end of the season I will leave the young in with the parents longer, if overcrowding is not a problem. Of all the birds I keep, I don’t have any that are aggressive towards the previous young birds. Most times the previous young are removed from the parents sooner rather than later, to avoid the young being a distraction to the parents going back to nest if the parents have not already done so.

In the colony how do you ever work this out?

The colony young cannot be identified as positively as the young from a single pair. This is important for making up future pairs. It is very difficult to establish their parentage and blood lines if you don’t know exactly who the parents are.

The Poly Pipe Fastening Method:

To use the brush in this way you need the following tools and equipment:

Pieces of 38 mm pipe cut at 450 each end and cordless drill and 20 mm screws to attach to the wall. Wire puller and bag ties to secure the bundles of brush and grass.

Here I use a small amount of grass usually green panic and three branches of prickly leaf paperbark (melaleuca stypheliodes) making sure the end result when gathered together fits into a 38 mm piece of pipe.

This should be the end result. You can arrange the pieces of pipe to attach these bundles in any order you like to achieve the desired result, which could be four or five pieces high, or singly across the wall as shown in the above photo.

Prickly Leaf Paperbark
(Melaleuca Stypheliodes)

The above is a photo of the Paperbark I have growing in my back yard. It is approximately eight metre high, and gets a vigorous chop every nesting season. It is also frequently inhabited by Red Headed Finches, White Breasted Pigeons and Crested Pigeons.

It is a definite favourite of the native finches, with up to fifteen nests at a time.

I’ve been into breeding finches before but have always had timber built aviaries with the old asbestos roofing. I don’t want to use these materials again therefore I am looking at a specially built colourbond aviary 4.5m x 2.25m x 2.1m. I am concerned about the heat factor as I live on the Gold Coast. Is colourbond OK or do you have any other suggestions?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

To answer the enquiry about construction of aviaries;

I can’t weld and I don’t know how to use steel, but this does not worry me because I prefer the timber frame with a hardiflex lining on the walls & ceiling with an iron (colourbond) roof.

The advantage is that you can build a very mouseproof interior, with the fibro lined walls preventing pests and predators such as mice and snakes from entering the nesting areas. The advantage of the hardiflex ceiling is, as well as providing insulation from the heat and the cold, it also stops any of the sweating and dripping that is inevitable with an unlined iron roof.

The hardiflex lined timber construction results in (if you are neat with your cutting of the hardiflex and good with a tube of “No More Gaps” and wet cloth) a very draftproof shelter, which is extremely important in the winter. I have yet to see the same effect from steel built aviaries.

I hope this can help you, because I am unable to really compare the two types of constructions through bird keeping and aviary building experience. But from my experience visiting other bird breeders housing Australian finches in steel aviaries, I do prefer the timber/hardiflex finish.

In conclusion, a friend of mine has just built a large set of steel construction aviaries, and has now gone to the trouble of lining the ceiling with hardiflex, mainly because of the dripping factor.

After all this, it all comes down to a personal choice. After all, there are thousands and thousands of finches bred in steel aviaries, so you are not doomed to fail or succeed as a finch breeder purely on the choice of your strutural materials.

The following articles are derived from my bird breeding experiences, reflections and are wholly my opinions on what I have found works for me. Although I have gained a lot of knowledge and experience from the past with regards to breeding birds, what I write about here is what I do today.

It gives me a lot of satisfaction and is very personally rewarding when each day I can cast my eye over the collection and say to myself “That’s a nice bird; that’s a nice pair; that’s a nice lot of young birds”.

This is not going to be the way with all the birds you breed, but if you can truthfully say this to yourself often, you are on the right track to achieving what you have set out to do and to feeling this sense of satisfaction.

To achieve this you must have a basic knowledge of certain facts and principles that not only govern finches but all birds, including budgies, canaries and poultry. It appears from my experience that not all pairs or pairings produce better than themselves; it is probably less that 10%.

For example, if you breed ten Longtails from a pair, you are lucky if have one bird that stands out above the rest. You must keep this bird and to make sure this bird does not slip through the net you must:

1. Not sell uncoloured birds; because until you have seen the bird in full colour you have not seen the bird properly. So resist as long as possible the need to dispose of the bird, either by sale or giving it away.
2. What every bird breeder needs to have is a very good holding cage. Then you can take your young out of the breeding aviary and band the bird with an identifying ring; give them sufficient room to grow, socialize and develop mentally and physically to change from a juvenile to a beautiful, mature and most importantly fully coloured bird ready for the owner to appreciate the end result and decide what will be the future for this particular bird. One should never be in too much of a hurry.
3. Even if you do not exhibit your birds you should have a good set of show cages. You need to study each and every bird you breed, and I repeat, do not let any bird go from your possession until you have had a good look at it. Assess each species as a group; take the time because this is where you will get to see your birds up close and to view them separately and to look for any differences or characteristics that stand out in a particular bird as against another of the same species even a sibling. You are looking for any distinguishing features that appeal to a breeder. The good birds will stand out and these are the birds that will define your future successes. It is so much easier than looking at 10 birds in a box; sticking your hand in and hopefully pulling out the bird that looked all right.
4. If you find a bird amongst these birds that you would like to keep, then you must decide what to pair with this bird or birds. The next step in pairing is to find a suitable unrelated partner for the outstanding bird or birds.

So what next? There are several paths to follow.

Pair your best birds to best birds and keep them as unrelated as possible. It is hard to have completely unrelated birds because it is hard to track birds that may have come from your initial birds, they may have gone all the way around the country and back to you. But in their journey they may have picked up some genes along the way, so in reality they are not exactly the same.

But really, if you find you get two birds together and they breed good offsprings, then that is all you can really ask for, because even the best bred birds with an impeccable pedigree can still breed ordinary birds. I find that breeding good birds to good birds you give yourself the best chance.

When we think of genetics we try to pair birds that, as far as possible, are not related. If we think of most finches in the wild, they are a flock bird, so how do the rules apply? How do the birds know what bird is not related to them?

For example, take wild Gouldians. They breed at a particular time of the year. They leave the nest, join other juveniles and go through the socialization of the flock life, and moult into their adult plumage. They are heading towards their own breeding season to bond with a bird that they are attracted to and it is pot luck as to which bird they will pair off with. It is possible that the bigger the flock the better the choice of mating with a partly unrelated partner.

What we have to do as breeders is try to keep that flock gene pool and we can eliminate those brother-sister matings that inevitably diminish the flock’s genetic strength. You should always keep a record of your birds. Keep your gene pool intact and ensure that you do your best to pair birds as far as possible from each family.

In 1984, I bought five pairs of wild W.A. Longtails at a pet shop in Tweed Heads. These were of the last legal shipment from the west.

Since then, I have introduced five or six birds I acquired from a bird breeder in Casino, NSW in 1990, All the Longtails I have are from these birds and because I keep many single pairs and have a system of banding that tracks the family groups. Consequently, I have no problem with fertility or genetic defects, etc. I can go about my business, feeding etc and often cast my eye over the species and still say “What a nice lot of Longtails”.

You cannot do this if you just throw ten pairs of Longtails in an aviary and hope for the best. Birds will breed in a colony of same species but it is too time consuming to observe what is actually happening in the colony. What works for me, and the only way I know how to get results, is by breeding birds as single pairs of species in with other single pairs of species.

This is the time of the year when you start to see the results of the past breeding season. The birds are partly through the moult and you start to think of next season, such as what to pair with what; what bloodlines to keep and what to discard. Don’t make up your mind too soon as to what you want to breed, but be guided by what you have available – good bird to good bird. Don’t try to breed inferior Reds when you have a good supply of Black or Yellow or vice versa.

I have come across articles in different magazines, books etc where the writer advises breeders to keep head colour true such as red to red, black to black, yellow to yellow. From my experience, I have not found this to be good advice.

It seems all my best birds have been bred from black hens; Red cock – Black hen; Yellow cock – Black hen; Black cock- Black hen.

I have bred some beautiful Red and Yellow hens but have not bred many good birds with them. This seems to apply in all types of Gouldians whether they be Normals or any of the mutations e.g. White Breasted (WB) and Single Factor (SF) and Double Factor (DF) varieties.

The first thing I do when all birds are fully coloured is to pay particular attention to all the Black hens whether they be Normals, WB, SF or DF. I then next decide which cocks I want to keep and mate them to the Black hens, but obviously not always, because some Red Hens and Yellow Hens you just can’t part with. I try pairing these with different cocks, as you never know something may happen. Over the many breeding seasons I have found that the surprises come from the Black hens and the disappointments from the Red and Yellow hens.

One thing I have found recently is that the Red Faced Parrot Finch and their mutations are very compatible with Gouldians. I run two pairs of Gouldians plus one pair of Parrot Finches together in aviaries 5m length x 2.4m high and 1m wide, only using nest boxes. These two species compliment each other as they have the same needs both diet and nesting requirements and look good together in the flight.

I feed these birds separate trays each of mixed seed, canary and jap millet. Each morning birds are fed a dish of cooked seed with egg and biscuit mix. No live food is given but I give as much green feed/seeding grasses as possible.

They will nest in a nest box or a 10 cm x 20 cm wire cylinder, but prefer to build their own nest midway to high up in the brush. They need a roosting nest so if when they are moved from one aviary to another, or to the holding cage you should make sure they have sufficient roosting facilities.

They don’t need to be bred in a colony; just one pair per aviary I find is the best way.

Sexing from a visual perspective may seem simple when you see the cock with a big round throat spot and the narrow pear shaped throat spot of the hen. There are some hens that have a very large throat spot and there are some cocks that have the small throat spot. The problem is defining the special hen from the inferior cock. Some people say that when the young are first out of the nest they can pick the cocks from the hens, but this is still only picking the good cocks and inferior hens. What we should do to improve the birds is to find those good hens and mate them with the good cocks. The easy to pick hen should be discarded, that is the hen with the narrow throat spot, because if you breed this bird with a good cock bird, chances are you will not improve the quality of the birds. The improvement in overall quality will come from the hard to pick hens.

Question:

How to pick the good hen from the inferior cock bird by not using just the throat spot?

Answer:

1. By looking at the head of the bird from side on; if you take a horizontal line from the eye to the back of the skull the cock will be the same silver colour above and below this line, but the hen will be silver below but a steely grey above.
2. The area of white feathers on the rump between the end of the black tail feathers and the grey feathers at the base of the back is much longer and whiter on the cock bird and the feathering around the vent area between the tail feathers and the belly is very white on the cock bird but a buff/beige on the hen bird.
3. The two tail feathers of the hen are usually straight and not as long compared with the long upswept tail feathers of the cock bird. I have never had nor ever seen a hen with a beautiful upswept curving tail.

I know this does seem like the hard way to sex the birds and sometimes I can still get it wrong, but when I get it right and find a really good hen and mate it with a really good cock bird, it greatly increases the chances of breeding a better percentage of good birds.

I find that Longtails are compatible with Masks that is, a pair of Masks with a pair of Longtails. You will only have a problem with cross breeding if you don’t have pairs.

In every aviary where I have Longtails, I also have Masks. In 15 years of putting this into practice I have had two nests of hybrids both from the same aviary.

The worst birds for producing hybrids in the grass finches are the Parsons and Diggles. They will mate with anything. They are beautiful birds but they are a problem. I find they don’t fit the mixed collection and are best bred on their own or with non-grass finches. This is a problem for me because I have Longtails and Masks in every aviary.