Lil' Pipsqueaks

For mid-summer's eve this year, the fairies brought our family two Zebra Finches.  As we were transferring them from the fairies' cage to ours, the male escaped.  He enjoyed a few minutes of flight...but quickly grew tired.

They both quickly adjusted to their new surroundings.  And the kids made them a permanent address.

In case you can't read it, it says, "The Robins  733 Branch St.  Nesting Hallow.  While they were creative with the address...they don't seem to be as creative with the names.  They named the male Christopher Robin...Chris for short.  And they named the female Becky after the main girl character in Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  When they name anything, it really depends on what they've read or watched recently.

But James likes to call them both lil' pipsqueaks.  You'll hear why in one of the videos below.  

And yes - having a male and female means that we will soon have eggs in the wicker nest.  That was one reason we allowed the fairies to leave such a gift.  Not only are they entertaining and fairly easy to care for...but it will be educational for the kids seeing eggs in the nest and watching them hatch and then watching the little chicks grow.  We've been told that each clutch will include 2-5 eggs on average.  Oh boy!

We were surprised at how quickly they adjusted to the new nest.  Chris has already begun using the cotton balls and paper confetti that we provided to make a soft bed for the eggs.  This picture is looking into the nest from above:

The picture with the kids was taken specifically for the "fairies" who brought us the finches.  I'm sure with the number of eggs in each clutch, we'll eventually give away a few finches of our own.  

Finches are not song birds.  They sound like squeaky baby toys.  Although, the male does learn his mating "song" from his father and then adds a few sounds of his own.  But the female just squeaks.  It's cute when they play tag and squeak at each other.  And it's really funny when we play a video of finches on the computer...that really gets them going!

This video is the mating song of Chris (he has the orange cheeks...Becky is listening from her window):

This video demonstrates how "squeaky" they can be!