I just picked some long grass strands out of a flower pot that had grown up unnoticed against the window and gave them to my canaries today.  Oh what fun they had with those.    They had to work to eat them, picking the strands off the floor, carrying them to a perch and holding them down with their feet to bite off pieces with their beak.  Now I could have cut the strands of grass into little pieces but that wouldn’t have given them the hour or so of fun that they had.  I am lucky that since my plants go out for the summer that grass and other things grow up in the pots that make great canary greens. 

I like watching my canaries inside when it’s too cold to watch my turkeys and ducks outside.    Birds have such fascinating behaviors.   Canaries are not supposed to be birds that pair for life, at least that’s what the experts say, but I have a pair here that say otherwise.  I wrote about them last year and their devotion to each other continues.   

In December I had separated this pair,  a little variegated hen and my youngest male canary because she just kept laying eggs that weren't hatching.  I was worried that her long laying season would wear her body out.  I thought that by separating her and removing her nest she could rest a little until spring breeding season.  They were never quite the match I wanted anyway and I was hoping the male would take another hen.

I have two cages with removable dividers stacked on a table with a similar cage at right angles to those on top of a filing cabinet next to them.   The bottom cage in the stack doesn't get as much light.  It had been occupied much of the year by one little orange canary hen  and she seemed happy enough but I decided I would like to breed her to the young male this season.   So in December when I separated the laying hen from him I put variegated hen in the orange hen’s cage, put the divider in the males cage and moved the orange hen next to him.

The young male was interested in the orange hen next to him.  He sometimes still called his previous girl and she answered but they couldn’t see each other with the cage divided.    He began to feed the orange hen and sing to her through the divider and I thought we were set for a breeding season.   On Valentine’s Day I removed the divider from his cage, ( along with the divider in the older males cage – who has another hen with him).  Young male and the orange canary were quite interested in each other for a few days and the hen began building a nest.  Then it happened.  Young male discovered that from the far corner of the undivided cage he could look down and across and see his old mate

An intense round of calling began between them.    The ex. began building a nest in a seed cup, finding anything she could to put in it.  The young male spent all his time in the corner of his cage, ignoring the orange hen and pacing and calling to his ex.    Then he began attacking the orange hen whenever she came near him.   I tried blocking his view but now that he knew where she was the young male wouldn't rest.   Finally, yesterday I could see the orange hen was miserable, huddled in a corner much of the day.  So I decided to give the young lovers what they wanted.  I moved the two sweethearts back together and the orange hen back to the bottom tier cage.

It was touching to see the reunion of the two birds.  They fed each other and kept up a running chorus of love talk immediately.  They mated 4 times in the hour I sat watching them.   There was  a nest in this cage and the hen flew to the task of filling it.  This morning she already has a huge nest built and she barely came off to eat some grass.  After he played with the grass for a while the male has been helping bring bits of stuff to the nest and standing by proudly while the hen turns around and around in it to mold it.  Their soft talk rarely ceases.   True love.   I hope they are more successful  hatching eggs this season, if so the love affair will be worth it.

Orange hen seemed very happy to be back in her old position, even though it really wasn't her old cage.  I suppose the view from that spot was familiar.  She spent a lot of time eating as soon as I moved her; I think the male was keeping her from eating.  I would still like to breed her.   However my only other male is an older male named Petey who while he sings, and is kind toward the hen who is with him, doesn't really seem that interested in mating.  I don’t know his exact age but he is at least 4 years old.   The hen with him is young, a sister of the orange hen, and she is playing a bit with nest building but hasn't really accomplished much.

I may do something else unusual and put the orange hen with her sister and the old male.  The two hens lived together amicably until about March last year when I put pairs together.    Maybe if the one hen doesn't excite the old male the orange hen will.  You know what they say about redheads.    Or maybe later in the spring I can try again to separate one of the males and give the orange hen a mate.

It just goes to show that animals don’t always follow the rules people attach to them.