The cut-throat finches move in
It’s not just people who move into homes already built and established, and then renovate to make them their own.
A variety of birds do this as well.
Our redheaded weavers moved out and onwards once their babies had fledged, and not much later we watched as the cut-throat finches very happily moved in.
Again out of the 5 nests hanging outside our back door, they chose the 2 busiest nests (in terms of our traffic in and out the door) in which to rear their little families.
There was much activity with renovations on the go (of course… you have to refurbish and renovate to your own taste) fixing up and adding to the nest to make it just right to start a new little cut-throat finch family.
It’s always very busy around the nests, and very difficult to look up into them to try and see what is going on. It’s also quite dangerous, as I found out. I’m not sure who got a bigger fright – me or the cut-throat finch, but I nearly got stabbed in my face by a bird-beak, while curiously craning my neck up to the nest opening to see what I could see, and the bird – who flies out of that nest with quite a speed let me tell you – flying out to find my face in the way. I just managed to move sideways in time, and I’m sure she also flew sideways just in time!!
And shortly afterwards we knew we had some more babies, this time of the cut-throat finch variety. The evidence was there for all to see, right below the nests.
The eggs are quite tiny – little white eggs roughly 2.5cm.
The males have a red band stretching across their throats, which is where I assume the name is derived.
They are very pretty birds, but quite shy. They don’t hang around to have their pictures easily taken!
These birds are monogamous, and try as a I might, I could not get a decent picture of the happy couple together. I did get some rather bad ones, which I decided best not to share.
As with all baby birds, it’s very stressful waiting to see if the babies are going to be successful or not. Sadly, we did have one unfortunate baby who was either kicked out the nest, or fell out.
However, I was lucky enough to go outside fairly late one night, I can’t remember what for, and saw movement out the corner of my eye, and there was this baby bird hopping away on the ground. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know enough that once they have feathers, to leave them alone, as generally they should be doing what they are supposed to be doing, so I took a little clip of him (or her) and then left it alone, in case mom and dad were nearby. By morning it had gone, so I’m assuming it had fledged safely and moved on to find its way in the world.
It’s not the best video, but it does show our happy baby cut-throat fledgling.