Well Finchme has been off the air again for a while.  I hope some you guys made it to the BIRDS show at Tiendasita’s on March 8.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get there and since then I’ve had some my recent aviculturals successes brought to a halt.  On March 10, I checked in on my two Owl finch nestlings as they were on the verge of fledging and was dismayed to discover them missing. On the floor, ants covered a dark, sticky, fecal pellet on the ground so I knew from experience that a snake must be in the aviary. In spite of the fact that I had birds on nests and young (Gouldians, Stars, Cut-throats and two unknown nests) I decided to pull everything out and search for a snake. I didn’t find it but it gave me the opportunity to redo the brush in the aviary and clean out the unoccupied nests. I sprayed with a pyrethroid (Coopex ) which in addition to being toxic to insects the sachet says that it’s toxic to reptiles (Good). I got some silicon rubber and sealed up any small gaps I found and hoped I’d sealed it out and not in.

The Gouldians, Stars and Cut-throats stayed on their nests and I assumed the snake had exited the aviary. Today however, some 8 days later, I know better. The breeding hen cut-throat is missing and the eggs are cold. There is one spot in the aviary I could’t look very well and that was a fern next to the raphis palm in which the Stars nested so I’ve now taken that out. While I found no snake I found the remains of a male Star that had been missing for the last few days.  My guess is that the Star nest will be lost and I still haven’t located the snake.

My next move will be to put a mouse in a cage in the aviary and hope that the snake will go into the mouse’s cage and eat the mouse and get trapped inside.  In almost every case the culpret has been a red-tailed rat-snake  as shown in the accompaning photo taken last year.  If anyone has better idea for trapping this animal I’ll be glad to hear as it is too an expensive a pest to entertain.

I’ll update this post as I discover more but if anyone knows a good way to trap a snake PLEASE tell me.  I think this weekend everything has to come out of the aviary and the whole cage remeshed.

Here is the up date:

March 18 – I found a dead cut-troat in the aviary – was it scared in the night by the reptile and few into something and died? The mouse is fine

March 19 – The hen Owl finch is missing presumed eaten.  The mouse is fine