Well, moving just got more complicated...

This is a nice picture of our two female society finches. They live in the large green aviary in the sewing room and have claimed this nest for their own. Can you see anything that might be considered unusual in this picture? I can.





no? keep scrolling then...








They are sitting on at least 2 baby birds! We have no idea how it happened. They were both supposed to be female, however, with societies you never know until they mate. Both Rachel and Leah appeared to be female. Neither one really sung much and both were avid nest builders. We just thought they were doing their normal society finch thing by sharing a nest. Society finches are notorious for cramming into nests as many birds as possible (occasionally suffocating the unlucky bird on the bottom of the pile). So two females sharing a nest is not unusual. About a week ago or so Krista and I noticed a lot of noise coming from the cage in the sewing room. It sounded like a society was just making a lot of racket because we were in "their" room. At the time I told Krista, "that sounds like a baby." She agreed, but it was coming from the society nest. It couldn't be a baby, right? We were wrong. I am still unsure if the babies will be full blooded society finches or if there were some late night rendezvous' between a society and another finch. Hybridization does occur and societies are the most commonly hybridized finches (along with waxbills, of which we have several). We can only wait and see at this point. When the babies fledge (leave the nest) in a couple weeks we will be able to tell what they are. In the meantime, we have to figure out how to move them 8 hours by car to North Carolina. If life wasn't interesting, we would be bored I guess.

Edit:
Here's a better picture of the baby. I couldn't see from this angle if there was another one in the nest. I thought I saw two the last time I checked. We'll see once fledging occurs. It definitely looks like a society baby though.