My new aviary

[lovemyfinch]

Ohhhhh,. looy who's filling their aviary verrrry quickly. congrats

[HoangQuan]

My strawberries , I love taking photos of them so much!!

[cindy]

They are very pretty. Nice coloring, I can see why you like to take pictures of them!

[albert]

OMG, $7 per pair, you are so lucky. Are they wild caught birds? if so, do they reproduce in captivity?

I will be right over to wipe them out.

[HoangQuan]

OMG, $7 per pair, you are so lucky. Are they wild caught birds? if so, do they reproduce in captivity?

I will be right over to wipe them out.

Yes Albert, they are wild caught birds. And I dont see any reasons why they wont breed in captivity. In fact, a friend of mine was successfully having them breeding in her aviary, she bought those strawberries about the same time with me by then, but when hers started to build nest, mine escaped .
this is a post from her from my Vietnamese Aqua-bird forum:

Kí ức tuổi thơ
Một trong những loài chim để lại cho tôi nhiều tình cảm và nỗi nhớ về những ngày xa xôi thuở bé chính là Mai hoa.
Khi mà cơm gạo được đong bằng tiêu chuẩn mỗi tháng và cứ đến kì thì tôi lại tót lên những chiếc xe đạp cũ kĩ của cha mẹ đi đong gạo hẩm ăn với những nắm bột mì luộc thì Mai hoa là thứ vô cùng xa xỉ. Không phải vì chim hay lồng quá đắt tiền mà chính bởi tiền mua hạt kê nuôi chúng luôn vượt quá khả năng nhịn ăn sáng của tôi.
Đến mùa săn chim, những lồng Mai hoa đỏ rực chất chồng lên nhau ở chợ chim Ngã sáu Phù Đổng, khiến tôi thèm thuồng đến độ mỗi khi đi ngắm chợ về thì bao nhiêu đêm sau đó cứ nằm mơ về con chim nhỏ với cái mỏ đỏ tươi và tiếng hót ríu rít từng tràng vui tai buổi sớm...
Giờ thì cái chợ chim của tuổi thơ đã xa lắc xa lơ vào dĩ vãng, những lồng Mai hoa vào mùa cũng đã vơi đi nhiều theo cuộc sống đô thị đang nuốt dần những khoảng xanh.
Nhưng may mắn cho tôi: trên vườn vẫn có một sân chim nhỏ để mỗi bình minh lắng nghe những làn điệu Mai hoa rộn rã, để mỗi chiều nắng sắp tắt lại ngóng vào chuồng tìm những dáng chim nhỏ xinh chuẩn bị chỗ ngủ cho một tối bình yên ...
Hơn 1 tháng trước, một hốc tre rậm lá lại xuất hiện những đụn cỏ bện vòng:
[ http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2670/dsc7007.jpg ]
Sau đó là thế này:
[ http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2411/dsc6965.jpg ]
Và những ngày hôm nay:
[ http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/32/dsc6982.jpg ]
[ http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2627/dsc6973d.jpg ]
[ http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/6346/dsc6943.jpg ]
[ http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7756/dsc6975r.jpg ]
Bố mẹ chim sáng nay:
[ http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5738/dsc6990.jpg ]
[ http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/66/dsc7003r.jpg ]

and although my English is not so good, I'll translate the post for everybody easier to read:
" The kind of bird that always remind me a lot of love, fancy, and memories about my childhood, is strawberry.
I will never forget the days I sat on my dad's old bike to go to the store and bought a little tiny amount of rice for my family through a whole next month. When living like that, strawberries become something way far luxurious to me; not because the high price of the birds or cage, but because their main food: millet. Millet was so expensive by then that even I'd been skipping my breakfasts for a really long time, I still couldn't afford them, after all, I was just a little girl.
When strawberries were in breeding season, dozens of cages full of hundreds vivid, dreamy reddy caught birds in Ngã Sáu Phù Đổng Market followed me not only to my home but into my dreams. I dreamed about them so many nights, those little beautiful birdies with tiny cute red beak and sweet songs every sunny morning...
Then, my childhood is left behind, far away behind. Leaving everything, including that market and those tiny birdie fellas fading through time..The city growing too fast means no more plenty of green spaces for strawberries or any other birds..
Lucky me! I must consider my self lucky, I still have a little aviary, a green piece for my own; for every peaceful morning listening to happy sound of strawberries flying around, for every sunset, curious me still standing there and looking around for my tiny friends busy finding a place to sleep throught another beautiful night.."
"about a month ago, I found this in a very bushy corner of my bamboo tree"
"and after that"
"and these days"
"birdie Mom and dad"


that's it. You can found the original post here: http://www.aquabird.com.vn/forums/showt ... 30&page=14

Photos and contents are original from ABV forum/Vietnam.

Cheers!!

[Meagan83]

Great story, thanks for the translation.

[Domenic]

Those are the most beautiful strawberries I have ever seen. They just don't come that red when they are domestic bred. Stunning!

[HoangQuan]

Wow I almost forget about this thread of mine O___O
Some update about the aviary:
One terribly hot afternoon, but aint we feel fresh looking at this:


Society finch hybrid F2: (bengalese finch X Spice finch) X Bengalese finch. I got this two from a friend, they're 2 months old, so they're molting to adult plumage, I'll update about them later


Society finch: they are both female


Strawberries always love to play hide and seek in these coconut


My little baby: whitebreast water-hen. I brought her home 1 year ago since she was still a little black thing



the new big flight cage
This is how I hold the perches


Water tube:


This is made by what left off when I finished with the perches. Turn out the gouldian babies like it. lol


this flower called "Buogainvillia spectabilis willd", in Vietnam it called "Hoa giấy"(paper rice-flower), I dont know the common name in english


A new beautiful society in the quarantine cage


Look at my juvenile gouldians, they're very playful




After 5 weeks, the oldest starts to molt now, I believe:


the youngest and the oldest:


Daddy(mommy is busy in the nest, again)



@Cindy: my friend came by yesterday and she loved the Pekin robin so much so I let her bring him home, too bad cuz today I can finally borrow a Camera and taking photo of my birds . I'll go looking for a new pair the next weekend, and will posting the photo as soon as possible

[cldheath44]

Hoang,

Your aviary is so beautiful! Even my 8-year old son, who was looking over my shoulder at the pictures, said "Whoa! It's awesome!!!".

Christine

[CandoAviary]

Those are the most beautiful strawberries I have ever seen. They just don't come that red when they are domestic bred. Stunning!

Domenic,
There are subspecies of strawberries. The amandava amandava are the prettiest
http://images.google.com/images?q=amand ... CA8QsAQwAA

What most people in the states keep are the Amandava punicea. They are more of a brown with some red coloration.
http://bestofpiafs.free.fr/bestof/C11a.php