An Ornithological Discovery - 4th November 2006

On Saturday I was over at Joanne's trimming her rose arch. One offcut had a nest and I put it aside. Joanne spotted that the nest was occupied by five open beaks with fluffy, beady eyed chicks behind them.

She got in touch with Fauna Rescue. Meanwhile a couple of parent birds were circling around the yard and searching the rose arch in confusion, despite our best efforts to put the nest where they could see it.


Fauna Rescue said chicks need to be fed about every ten minutes - but that it was unsafe for us to try feeding them (unsafe for the chicks, I guess).

Fay from Fauna Rescue collected the nest fairly quickly; but unfortunately by Wednesday only one chick had survived. "You've made a discovery," she told Joanne, "they are European Finches and weren't known to be in this state".

As Joanne said, "Great. The population went from 0 to 7 to 3 in a matter of days. She said they are feral, but not destructive feral, just non-native feral."

- photos by Joanne