FINCHforum

Love this pic! Perfect timing



And for once, I have a good photo to show the difference between the BB cordon's. Hen is in the middle, with 2 boys on the ends (note depth of blue).

Roxanne, what a great photo! Looking at the males in your photo, I'm now convinced that my BB cordon is a female. Her blue coloring is much less intense than your males'.

Thanks for posting the photo.

Rox - Fabulous photo. Thanks for sharing.

Wow

Oh, I love it! Great capture!

I was noticing the belly of your orange-breasteds. There are two subspecies in the genus of Amandava: clarkei and subflava. Yours looks more like the clarkei, which is the bright yellow breast. My gold-breasteds have the glow orange all the way up to their throat. That's interesting, because here, at least in Texas that I've seen, I have not seen any of the clarkei subspecies, only the subflava. I was wondering if you were able to get both where you are.

Adorable!!! They made a little birdie pattern

Lovely finches. Very nice picture!

Rox
Ok Roxanne.
How did you train them to sit like that? Spray millette ? Termites? Grubs? Tell the truth now girl???

KarenB Mine are the S. Clarkei. We call them the Golden-Breasted waxbill and the Subflava, the Orange-Breasted (or Zebra) waxbill.

We do get both here in SA, I just prefer the more golden chest. The less orange for me, the better

@lovezebs
Lol, lovezebs, they know which side their bread is buttered on (with worms added )

Rox Thanks for that photo of the two sexes of Blue-breasted Cordon Bleus. It shows how difficult it is to sex them, unlike the other Cordon Bleus, which have very obvious differences.

As KarenB said, we get the Amandava sublava variety in the U.S. We commonly call them Goldbreasts, which is really inaccurate, they should be called Orange-breasted Waxbills. Even my signature is wrong, as I have the sublava variety.

Great photo, btw!

Great picture of your beautiful birds. Next time ask them to all face the camera and smile hahahah
I know what you mean, it is so hard to catch just the right moment.

Thank heaven for digital. Just imagine the film it would have taken not so long ago

Sally

Sally, I am giving the BB cordon's one more chance this season to see if they will breed with 2 pairs in the aviary. The pairs are now heading towards 2yrs old, so I should know this season if it will work or not. If I still have no luck and only get dead/tossed chicks, next season I will separate the 2 pairs into different aviary's. It will mean rehoming my 2 BC cordon boys but I desperately want to see if I can get some blue fledgling's. Thankfully the BB cordon's devour loads of fresh veggies and sprouts, so I'm hoping my lack of live food variety is not the problem (I only offer mealworms).

Such a lovely photo!
You couldn't get another one like it if you tried for the next 20 years! A true one of a kind.
Thanks for sharing!

Fabulous photo. They were really sitting just perfectly for your snap!

The Orange Breasted Waxbill / Zebra waxbill is also indigenous to SA. SO if we wanted to keep them we would have to get permits etc. Goldenbreast is just as pretty without the trouble of permits.

My Orange breasted waxbill pair fledged 3 babies today.
Managed one picture.