J. E. Sweetnam—Notes from a Somerset Aviary



267



aviaries contain only foreign hardbills, so these notes are only qualified

to interest those whose activities lie in the same direction.


Here is the story of the two Diamond Sparrows, now about to fly

from the third nest in which they have already passed part of their

brief span of life. Having occasion to return home for a day in the

middle of my holiday, I found a deserted nest of what I thought to be

Diamond Sparrow eggs, the parents having, Zebra like, deserted them

in favour of.another site, where they were then incubating. As the

three eggs seemed fairly fresh I looked about for a foster parent, but

could only find a hen canary which had already reared a number of

Goldfinch mules and was now supposed to be paired with a Hooded

Siskin mule. Though the said hen seemed more likely to moult than

complete the incubation period, it was a case of “ Hobson’s choice ”,

so I left her to it and, on returning home during the first week of

September, was surprised to find three day-old Sparrow chicks. I doubt

if she could have reared them but, as it happened, the question never

arose since, that particular aviary being seldom used and possessing

no safety door, the hen slipped out and, strangely enough, never

returned, leaving me to search for yet another foster for the

orphans—now two or three days old. Apart from Zebras, of which

I am always suspicious as foster parents, the only available repository

was a Bengalese nest from which, on my mid-holiday visit, I had removed

all but seven of the twenty or so eggs it then contained. It now held

one partly fledged Bengalee and one naked youngster of, apparently,

about a week old. Having, with the aid of the invaluable teaspoon,

extracted the minute Diamond Sparrows from their first nest and

presented them to the Bengalese, I visited the nest a few days later

with the intention of removing their corpses, only to find all four

birds well on the way to the independence one has already attained.

Though, no doubt, many others could record similar experiences,

I think this is worth mentioning as further proof of the value of

Bengalese as foster parents, and of the wisdom of approaching all

similar problems in the spirit of that friend of our childhood, Robert

Bruce.


While writing of unusual breeding experiences, I wonder if any other

member has found both cock and hen Diamond Dove each incubating



