Translate

Pages

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Red Siskin [Carduelis Cucullata]


"The Red Siskin (Carduelis cucullata) is a small passerine bird. This finch is a resident breeding bird in tropical South America in northern Colombia and northern Venezuela (where it's called "cardenalito"). The introduced population on Trinidad is believed to be extinct, with no sightings since 1960.
Some hope has been given to this highly endangered species by the discovery in 2003 of a population of several thousand birds in southern Guyana, 1000 km from any previously known colony. Otherwise the world population is believed to be between 600-6000 pairs." 



The quotes on above will be read if you take a look in Wikipedia.
Actually, trying to have this bird is close to 'just a dream' to me, since it is not available in the market nor no Importer would like to bring this bird to Indonesia, where I have to wait for tens of years 'till this day. It is a lucky day when a friend of mine told me that one pair left in the market, for me to right away hunt it and get it. The couple looks very good, young and healthy. I guess its reached at least 1 year old. The male, the red one, looks very active, pretty often to sing and chirping. The female, the duller feather color, seem a little bit wild. More wild than the male. I see some feathers are fallen in the bottom of the cage. One of them is in molting. The day after I brought it home, I separate them, each in individual cage. The purpose is to let them becoming more fit and healthy untill the molting period is over and they will ready for breeding. There is no use to keep them in pair if one or both of them are in molting period, they will not breed anyway. It can be seen in the picture, the female feathers in the cap is not tidy, some of the feather was fallen and some of it are growing. It is more important to feed them with good diet, treat them with minerals and vitamins, so the female will be much better for breeding preparation. The female molting period took longer than the usual time required. The feathers are not fall together in a such period, but falls per body part, started from the head/cap, down to the lower parts.






They are very beautiful, in shape and also in their color. I use to watch them every morning and it is nice to see different color rather than to see the grey and brown color of the Yellow or White Rumped Serins an Green-Yellow of the Green Singer. I just remember the first time I heard the male's singing its song, looks so strange to me, since I used to hear the songs of Yellow Rumped Serins, White Rumped Serins/Grey Singer and also the Green Singer, which they sing in rapid tempo. This Siskin is singging slowly in tempo, the rhythm is quiet slow too.
I am going to try to have some chicks of Grey Singer or Yellow Rumped Serins will have this Red Siskin song. I believe they will make a good very slow tempo songs. Some Yellow Rumped Serins/Black Throated Canary of White Rumped Serins/Grey Singer lovers are really like the birds are singing in slow tempo rather than in speeding.

I used to put a small wooden box for the bird to make their nest. For this pair, I tried to use a quarter cut ball shape rattan (or bamboo?) woven nest shell, but seems they didn't like it very much. So, I build a small wooden box for the nesting bowl, with the sizes and width to fit the cage's door to pass it.
Hoping that they will like it and use it as soon as the molting is over.

No comments: