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The Masked Grassfinch

The masked grassfinches are excellent community birds. Mine are very peaceful birds, never showing signs of aggression accept when they are sitting on (infertile) eggs, and then it is just a little warning to the other birds to stay away.

I originally had two females (Red and Jade). The one thing that I really liked about these birds was their willingness to share their nest with other birds at night. At one time, they shared their little stick dome nestbox with an owl and a zebra (neither the owl nor the zebra are with us any longer, due to an illness that passed through the old aviary a while ago). I felt like they would take in any "stray" that needed a place to stay (even though there were plenty of empty nestboxes in the aviary that could have been used).

Red passed away after a long battle with a Megabacteria infection. It took four 10-day courses with Amphotericin B to finally rid her of the fungus. But just as she was getting better, she became infected with an unknown virus that caused symptoms similar to Twirling. The vet prescribed a potent oral antibiotic that has good penetration into the brain, but it had no effect on poor Red and the virus progressed extremely quickly. She passed away only a few days after starting the antibiotic.

The night before Red passed away, Jade must have finally given up on her ever returning to the aviary, because she gave up the nest she had shared with Red and moved in with Evel zebra. They have been a (non-breeding) couple ever since. I would like to get another masked grass companion for Jade, but she and Evel have become so comfortable together, I don't believe it would be a good thing to rock the status quo.

The masked grassfinches are excellent flyers. They like to dart across the aviary and back in quick sweeps. They especially like to do this when I am cleaning, zipping right by my head and then back to the other side again. I wouldn't dream of keeping them in a cage because they enjoy flying so much.

 

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