Finch Friday (yes, on Saturday again)

I finally got around to taking some updated photos of last week's featured finches, those gouldian finch babies that I hand-fed from day 1. The following photo shows ,my favorite (yes, this mommy has a favorite) of the babies. His name is Duncan & he really is pretty special. He weaned at 4 weeks old (probably a record) - a full 2 weeks earlier than the other three. And if that wasn't cool enough, this baby who had never been fed by a bird, started feeding his less independent siblings. In the past, I've seen a couple of juvenile gouldians help their parents feed newly fledged babies of the next clutch, but by that time, those juvie helpers were at least 10 weeks old. Little Duncan was only 5 weeks old when he began to help feed his brothers and sisters of the same age. Here he is, just starting to get some of his adult colors:





Here are his two brothers. Speck is on the left. On the right is Color Boy - so named because he has more of his adult colors than the others, unfortunately not viewable here since he's not facing the camera.








gouldian finches