Technician Tales: The Tricks of the Lady Gouldian
Lady Gouldian Finches are hailed as some of the most beautiful birds we supply in our aviaries. Canaries may be adept at singing and the Society Finch might have a cute bubbly personality, but neither can come close to matching the Lady Gouldian for its awesome display of bright emerald green, crimson red, royal purple and banana yellow feathers. When I first saw these birds, I could not believe that they were a finch and not a parrot. Lady Gouldian’s originate from the grasslands of Australia but have thrived at living and breeding in captivity. Gracing us with their rainbow plumage.
Despite being an absolute delight to look at, I have found that these birds possess a sassy and even erratic personality. They seem to know how good they look and take it as an allowance to cause mischief. The young ones are so extremely energetic and feisty that when I go into an aviary to try and catch them, I might as well be chasing after little winged NASCAR racers. They’ll fly back and forth, round and round, and never seem to get tired. When they successfully evade me, they let out triumphant chirps and ruffle their feather smugly; trapping them involves quite a bit of strategy, speed, and luck!
Adult Lady Gouldian’s have scared me more than I ever believed a tiny finch ever could. It seems to happen at least once or twice a month. I will go in to service an aviary, capture all the birds, and start to remove the nests from the excelsior backing and before I take a nest down, I always peer inside it first to make sure there aren’t any eggs or babies. In these cases, when I do, there suddenly comes a defiant shriek and before I know what’s happening a dark, feathered figure lunges from the darkness of the nest directly toward my face. I myself will usually let out a shriek as well and jolt backwards, heart pounding (luckily no one has seemed to notice when this happens!). Meanwhile the hide ’n seek champ flies around the aviary, no doubt angry at having been found.
Lady Gouldian’s are the only birds in the aviaries that seem to do this behavior (in my experience thus far). Somehow, while all the other birds fly around in a frenzy, trying to escape being captured by my net, the Lady Gouldian’s have enough strength of will to stay silent and remain hidden. I believe that this speaks of their intelligence and may even be a glimpse of the behaviors they exhibit in the wild. Being so colorful, I’m sure that their best defense from predators is hiding their bright colors until the danger has passed. Additionally, the males—who are colored even more vibrantly than the females—will use their coloration to draw predators away from their mate and nests. They are willing to do anything to protect their families. How awesome to see these characteristics exhibited in real life, even if it means a scare every now and again!
