Three Years In The Making

- Neil Bickell

FOREIGN BIRDS

HAVING sold all of my dusky munias (Lonchura fuscans) in 2012 and then deciding I wanted to take up this species again in 2016, I found it extremely difficult to get hold of some new stock. This is a very underrated mannikin, probably due to the birds being rather dull in colour – a mottled black and brown all over with a black and silver beak.

After putting a few posts on various groups on Facebook with no joy, I had more or less given up trying to find any. Thankfully, only a week or so before the 2016 National Exhibition my prayers were answered. Dave Harris, a fellow Waxbill Finch Society (WFS) member and chairman of the Australian Finch Society (AFS), had a pair available that I could collect from Stafford.

Whenever you decide to keep a new bird species I fully recommend doing as much research as you can. A phone call or a few emails to the breeder can usually help tenfold compared to what you may find online. You can’t always believe what you read on the World Wide Web either. Luckily, I can look back on several years’ experience keeping these great little munias and breeding more than 50 chicks.

When I picked the birds up from Stafford, I can only describe the feeling as a kid in a sweet shop. I was so pleased to have a pair again. It does make me think that I should give it some real thought if I decide to ever sell up or move on from a particular species again, because it is not always that easy to get hold of certain birds. I was very lucky.