Hwamei eats Cherry fruit

In previous blog as see here (Hwamei eats papaya fruit), I documented that one of the male Hwamei that I keep eats Papaya fruit.  The same Hwamei also like to eat cherry.  He can devour whole cherry in just little over half an hour.

Hwamei eats Papaya fruit?

There is not much information available about the Hwamei that eat fruits in both wild and in captivity.  I know that Hwamei loves to eat peanut, but not fruit.  I had tried to feed them orange, grape, strawberry, banana, and none of the fruit that I offered get eaten by the Hwamei.  Recently, with the keeping of Troupial pair, I start to feed them with papaya fruit and also throw a few small pieces of papaya for the Hwamei to eat.  The pair of Hwamei that live in the aviary did not eat the fruit, but the lone young male Hwamei in the bamboo cage eagerly eats it.  Here are some pics of this young male Hwamei eats papaya fruit.

(Please click on the pictures to see bigger pic)

The Hwamei pair 2010 Breeding Season

The pair are introduced and live together since around Oct 2009.  They are eating together, preen each other feathers since the introduction.  Recently around last week of March 2010, they both start to carry on their beak nesting materials, jumping from branches to branches but seems to do not know what to do with those nesting materials.  The male calls with the sound like roo..roo...roo..roo constantly and beating his wings real fast.  The female sometimes answers the call of the male and starts finding nesting materials at the aviary floor and she also jumps from branches to branches to follow the male.
First week of April 2010, observed that they pick a nest site and start dropping few nesting materials into the nest; however, they have not seen to do any "fixing" of the nest site.
As of 04/11/2010: Looks like that they finish building the nest.  They begins to stop carrying nesting materials to the nest.  The male start to stand in front of the nest most of the time, but they still sleep at their usual spot at night (higher near the top of aviary while the nest is just about 2ft up from the floor).  The nest location is hard for me to see any egg inside yet.  Will patiently await to see if this pair can produce any chicks.

Link to video clip of breeding Hwamei

Little over a week ago, one of my friend Dungdavang2000 send to me a link of someone breeding Hwamei via ShoutMix.  Because ShoutMix has limited posted, I want to post the link here so everyone can enjoys and possible learn a few tips/ technique so that one day we can successful breeding this bird.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTIzMjA0MzQ0.html

http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XMTIzMjA0MzQ0/v.swf

Birds have a good bath today!

What a beautiful day today with lots of sunny and warm weather of 75F, so I take out the camcorder and record the bathing process of the birds.

Here is the male and female white-rumped shama taking a bath:

Here is the Hwamei taking a bath:

2009 Hwamei Breeding Season Summary

I don't think I post this picture before in my blog.  Back in June 09 when I first acquired the female Hwamei, right after introducing her to the her mate she started to lay egg.  I don't know that the pair threw the egg out of the nest or she laid on the cage floor, but unfortunately all the egg (three of them) are found broken on the floor of the aviary.  Either way, none of the egg would survive since the eggshell is very thin and rubbery like.  I suspect the female didn't have enough calcium in her system due to poor care from the previous owner.  I have since provided regular calcium supplements to her and all other birds.  We will see the female will lay her eggs in the nest or not in this upcoming 2010 breeding season and also see if the pair will incubate the eggs or not.  From what I hear and read, breeding Hwamei is extremely hard due to the fact that most of the pair didn't incubate or throw eggs/babies out of the nest.  Just wonder because of the secret nature of Hwamei, insecurity in small aviary, or other factor(s) that could contribute to this problem.  Time will tell!

Currently, the pair Hwamei is doing great in their own small aviary with lots of plants both inside and around the aviary.  Few small finch (zebra finch) are also share the same aviary with the Hwamei.  Both of the Hwamei start to sing at dawn and again at dusk before going to sleep.  Plenty of different type of nest and various building materials also provided.  Will see how the pair behave in few more months when 2010 breeding season begin.

I believe this is the male Hwamei attemped to build the nest

One of the three eggs laid and broken on the aviary floor.

 The Hwamei pair: Male is on the left. (pictures were taken in June-July 09)

The Male Hwamei:

White crowned Robin Chat - Cossypha albicapilla

Below is the pair (according to the seller) of white crowned robin chat that I purchase at the Bird Mart in Pomona today. I wasn't plan to buy this pair since I know nothing about them (beside eating insect as other Cossypha genus), but with the decent price and little impulse, I decide to get them. This is the only pair of its kind in the Bird Mart. The male is the one with ugly tail. He lost one of the front toe nail on the right and his back toe on the left is defected in a way that it hard for him to curve the back toe nail to grab the branch. The female is perfect. Just wonder how good the song of this specie compare to the white rumped shama as not much info about this specie on the internet.



Just update on the Hwamei that finish his molt: