Orange, New South Wales, Australia - 28th March 2008
By: sararingham
Sorry I haven't updated in SO long! Sara's been busy cleaning and we've all tried to help however we can, but we can only do so much being only a few inches tall. :-) Sara decided last night to introduce us to all of her animals. She's a huge animal lover so we got to spend a lot of the last week with them! :-)
Sara decided it was time for me, as a long-haired mouse, to meet her mice, which includes one long-haired mice... but where are they? I can't see them in there...
Oh, there they are. They're resting!
...and we woke them up... :-) You can see Waffles at the top of my head... the white one is Charlotte, pancake is the tan colored one and Moo is the other black and white one. :-) So cute! Charlotte is the long-haired mouse. :-)
...you can't see Little Foot, which looks a little bit like Pancakes but much larger... Pancakes and Waffles are babies, and the others are all around 2 months older than the babies. :-) Aren't they cute?
Here's a close-up of Waffles, I couldn't be in the picture since that would scare her away... she's a very social mouse. :-)
Next stop I got to see the fish, most of the fish are swordtails, platties, one guppy and various danios. Sara also has a huge suckerfish which you can see at the bottom of the tank, he's sucking on the drift wood. There's lots and lots of baby platties that are just big enough to be in the big tank now, it's pretty cool t see them! All the platties look the same though, hehe. :-)
...and last but not least, here is what we've been listening too since we got here... the birds...
I couldn't get photos with all the birds because they're not used to me being this close so they get scared easily... and I'll tell you why a bit later... but here's the type of birds in the cage...
There are three diamond doves, all of which are pictured here... they make sounds like "who-hooo" it's pretty cute and they usually only do it at night time. Sara says they're the smallest dove in the world. There not much bigger than any of these finches. They're names are Silver, Bluey and Gumby.
There are three pairs of Gouldian finches. Most of them are red faced and yellow faced. No black faced gouldians (which are the most common suprisingly)... this is one of the males. They're called Mr. Colors, Tweet, Twiddle, Bunyip, Puggles, Grimey (think the Simpsons).
There's a pair of spice finches, which are also called 'nutmeg' finches. The mating call is almost silent and it is a strange sound towards the end I don't know how to describe it. But they're called Pepper and Paprika.
There's 5 pairs of star finches, this is a red faced male, there's also yellow faced star finches. Sara has a unique one that has an entirely different song than the others, that makes him the head of the whole aviary... they're called Peep, Dotty, Spots, Mr. Peep, Prickles, Goo, Stars, Comet, and two red females which are unnamed as of yet. :-)
I have pairs of zebra finches... this will come into more detail later... but their names are Mr. Zebra, Frank, Squeak, Bell Beep (which was supposed to be a female - but obviously isn't), Meep, and another unnamed female... so obviously not all paired up, but Sara can't get anymore at the moment, and this is why...
...and this is why, you can see Bell Beep (the one that was supposed to be female but obviously a male - his plumage is just coming in)... one of the female yellow stars on the top of the nest, and the unnamed female zebra in the nest... she's "warning" the other birds to get away - because she had 4 eggs she's been sitting on for the last few days... so hopefully we'll have some babies soon! :-)
...and last but not least, the newest addition to the finch family is the owl finches... they're very good birds to adapt into a mixed aviary, as with the spice finches, so they've all bonded quite well with the stars especially, which is good since they're the leading group of finches in the cage... the owl finches are called owlie and owllet. :-)
Hopefully this week we're going to Cook Park and Mount Canobolas, the extinct volcano 20 minutes from here.... :-) We'll see how this next week goes! :-)
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Posted Mar 29, 2008, 7:36 am Last edited Mar 29, 2008, 7:37 am by sararingham
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