On a cold winter day I thought it would be nice to clean out the Finch cage. I took the cage out side and removed the seed catcher then wandered into the garage to find a new perch. I was in the garage about five minutes before coming back to the cage to find Pete my male Zebra Finch sitting in the Birch tree and Lill his female mate looking up and frantically calling to him from inside the cage.

Oh no I thought how could this happen? I must have flicked the cage door open by accident when I removed the seed catcher from the cage. With one strong gust of wind Pete was flung into the air and his journey in the big wide world had begun. I looked high and low for Pete, and Lill called longingly to her mate with but with no reply from him. As dusk crept over the sky I came to the realization that our Pete was not coming home.

As I sat there that night I was devastated that I had caused this disaster. Lill was too devastated which was obvious by her behavior; she was quite and retired to the nest earlier than usual. Pete and Lill had been caged together for six months and in that time they had bonded and attempted to procreate but with no success.

I realized by two days on Lill had become lonely and was missing the company of Pete. I sat with her for long periods during this time and she became even more attached to me (would you believe a Finch could be attached to a human). I have a small aviary in my back yard with more Zebra and Owl Finches and decided to introduce a young handsome Zebra Finch to Lill. Needless to say the encounter went sour when the new male Finch harassed Lill incessantly. I gave Lill a day to recover from the trauma of that encounter before as a last resort buying a beautiful big adult male Zebra Finch from my local bird seller. I also bought a much larger cage for Lill and the new male Finch. I set the new cage up and introduced Lill and the new Finch at the same time.

After some hesitation and tense skirmishes all seemed well in the new Finch cage. I named the new male Finch Jimmy. Two months on from that disaster Lill and Jimmy are incubating their first clutch of eggs which are due to hatch any day now. These two seem to have an even tighter bond than Lill had antecedently with Pete and for now Lill has gotten her fairy tale ending!

Article © Danielle Kriegler 2006