Well November’s gone by and still no one appears to have read the last few posts (or the counter’s not functioning) so there may not be anyone to wish a Merry Christmas to but I hope you all do anyway.

My last 6 months have been particularly disappointing in that my aviaries appear to have been sterilized! None of my birds have successfully bred since May! Almost nothing has nested, those that did nest had mainly clear eggs and any that did hatch died within a few days of hatching. I’ve also had some mysterious deaths that the UP veterinary hospital have attributed to idiopathic causes – possibly mal-absorption syndrome. I myself have come up with a hypothesis – poisoning! Just before I went away in June I put a potted plant in the aviary and noticed it brought an unwelcome guest – a large cane-toad. I was unable to catch it at the time and only managed to capture and remove it in October. These nocturnal animals are practically toxic and while I can’t find anything in the literature I believe that it must have shared the water during the night and gradually poisoned the aviary. Unfortunately I had all my finches in that aviary for 3 months and it is this one factor that possibly caused my sterility and lack of vigor. Even the stress of having such a large nocturnal animal in the cage wouldn’t have helped the birds. Since the removal of the offending animal I’ve had quite a few failed nests so I’m hoping that they can work the toxin out of their system otherwise the only solution is to dispose of the birds and start again.

Another disappointment was that the promised shipment of exotic finches from one of the Cartimar shops failed to materialize. I hope that these guys have more persistence next year.

In 2009 Cartimar still continued to hold some avicultural surprises even if they aren’t finches. I’m amazed and appalled to see variety of Palawan wildlife for sale. Vipers, civets, monkeys, squirrels, blue racquet-tails and blue-naped parrots, hill mynahs as well as other assorted treats owls, eagles, pitas, button & painted quail, munias (scaly breasted, white bellied, chestnut), flower peckers, orioles, white-eyes, local parrots (colisissi & Guaiabero) and pigeons (bleeding hearts, zebra, and about 3 types of fruit doves).  Lets not forget the Indonesian stuff – well I only saw pig-nosed turtles and chattering lorries this year but I did see the progeny of some ornate lorikeets and I’m sure their parent’s weren’t exactly legal. I can’t believe that the young caiman and salt-water crocodiles are legitimate either. I might tut-tut about such things but I was also tempted by some green-faced parrot-finches but they would only sell as lot at P3000 each and I couldn’t afford that but somebody else could!

I hope to resupply myself with viable seed for sprouting while in Australia over Christmas as most of the seed here is dead. I will drool over the exotics available there and come back hopefully to my aviaries full of young.

Merry Christmas and a finchful 2010.