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The Blue-Capped Cordon Blues

Murphy and Sadie are my two blue-capped cordon bleus. The male and female can be distinguished from each other by the amount of blue coloring, particularly on the head. The male's head is entirely blue, whereas the female's face is blue, but the top of the head is brown.

Both males and females sing a lovely song. Although I prefer the strawberry's song, my cordon bleus sing more frequently.

Cordon bleus are notoriously difficult to breed. They are famous for laying and hatching chicks only to toss them or abandon them. It's been reported that they require vast amounts of live food to successfully raise chicks; however, some have reported success feeding eggfood. Murphy and Sadie have been very interested in mating - they sing and dance, waving feathers in their beaks and I've observed the mating act several times. However, I do not have nestboxes or nesting material so nothing ever comes from it other than the occasional stray egg on the bottom of the aviary.

NEW: I have been breeding blue caps for two years now - I finally have video of blue caps feeding their young (you cannot see the chicks well except as occasionally blurry grey flashes of fuzz popping up for food). The video can be found here: Blue Caps Feeding Young.

My cordon bleus are very active birds and enjoy flying in successive quick sweeps from one end of the aviary to the other. They also like to swing on the clothesline in the aviary. I was hesitant to acquire cordon-bleus because of their reported need for live food. However, I was assured by the breeder that they would do fine on eggfood, and they have.

When I first acquired Murphy and Sadie, they did not seem to like each other very much. Sadie would chase Murphy incessantly and not allow him to perch near her. I separated them for a couple of weeks. When reintroduced, she had a change of heart and now they are inseparable.

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