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.

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.