Melodious

I spend the first half hour of every morning feeding my zebra finches and cleaning up their poop. The pay off is that I get to listen to them all day. The five boy babies - they're still my babies, even if they're practically full grown - start singing as soon as the sun comes up and keep going all day. Daddy Harold gets in on it every so often. Mama Sophie and the two girl babies chirp along with them.

The boys are happy they moved out of their tiny studio apartment into a luxury condo. They've got extra perches, a swing, a mirror and a disco ball with a bell attached. They love to ring the bell - which drives Lizzie crazy. I think she wants it for herself.

July Jones, the baby that hatched a month ago, still hasn't shown his or her true colors. Last week, Harold and July moved into the smallest cage together. Sophie has some hatchlings in the nest. I feel bad that Harold's not there to help her, but the two of them need a break from reproducing and July still isn't eating completely on his own. If July turns out to be a girl, she'll move in with her siblings. I'll try moving Harold in with the boys, but if he fights them like he has in the past, he'll have to be a loner for awhile. Hopefully, July will be a boy so the two of them can stick together.

July kept trying to kill the hatchlings. The last straw was when he pushed two of them out of the nest along with two eggs. I was tempted to just let it happen. Birds sometimes kill their siblings in the wild but it's not natural when they're confined to a cage.

Even though July moved out a week ago, yesterday I found one of the hatchlings dead. I'm not sure if he died in the nest and Sophie pushed him out or if he fell or if she killed him. She seems to be taking care of the one(s) that are still alive. But if she wants to kill her babies, oh well. Who could blame her? She's already produced 8 living offspring in the last six months, plus a bunch of eggs that never hatched. Poor girl deserves a vacation.