Here's a photo of Lynn, the momma bird down on the left, and her two babies. They're in a panic because I'm pointing a camera at them. Here's their story.
One day while cleaning cages Lucille discovered something in one of the dishes, maybe the grit and gravel dish. It was a baby bird. Shocked, she assumed it was dead and was doubly shocked to see it move. She put it back into the nesting house where she discovered another live baby, smaller than the first. She hadn't realized the parents were incubating eggs. In the following days, the babies were thrown out over and over again, especially the bigger one. She kept putting them back over and over again.
Then one day she noticed the bigger one's upper beak wasn't pointy like it should be. She took it downstairs to show Jill who saw there was a bit of blood between the beak and the little baby's face. Yow! One of the parents was not only tossing babies out daily, but beating up on the one. Which parent was doing it?
Unable to determine from watching, because they wouldn't misbehave while she looked, she decided to haul the father out of there. Bingo. The babies stayed put in the nesting house, except when they wanted to come out on their own. They wanted to do that a lot. Having been out so often already, they had no fear of coming out.
Mother Lynn fed the babies by herself nicely for a week or more. Lucille wondered if she needed a break or help and put the father back in and watched to see if he'd help. He didn't get a chance. Lynn beat the hell out of him! She seemed to have noticed child-rearing done right versus his tossing and brutality and she was angry with him. So he came out again real quick.
And it dawned on Lucille that the father must be Al. We never let Al mate any more after we labeled him Al, the baby killer. But now that Lucille can't see too well and the boys look identical, she has trouble telling who is who.
So those babies are lucky to be alive! Al's previous babies died as a result of his brutality. The older baby has white on its wings and white dots on its head. Cute, like Fizzy. There's a little cowlick on the back of its head which may or may not have come about as a result of all the tossings. The worst damage is the slightly shorter upper beak. Thank goodness the baby can eat on its own and preen pretty good. It won't die from the slight deformity. Phew!
We're delighted to have a bird with white on the wings. Fizzy, our first female and still going strong, has white on her wings and we love the look. The only other finch with white on her wings was Dot, our flock heroine. Now we hope this is another wonderful female.
Now we eagerly await discovering what sex these two babies are. We need females. We have unmated males galore. Let's hope they're not two more boys.
P.S.
Update upon taking the photo. The darker baby is the one in the nesting house and it's a male. There are brown and white spotted feathers starting to show on each shoulder. So far the one with white on the wings could still be female. Too soon to know about her for sure at five or six weeks.
