My poor male gouldian finch .And a couple of facts .

Well i have gouldian finches and they are beautiful little birds . They come in three natural variations , red headed , black headed and orange headed . The picture below is a good representation of the male of the species , the female purple chest is a lot duller .

Anyways i have a male red headed gouldian and he tries his heart out to impress his prospective mate a red headed female . He has picked out a nesting box and no matter how much nesting material i put in the cage he somehow manages to cram it into the box . It is not a big box perhaps 6 inches cubed but i can guarantee you it must have tardis like properties inside . It is a nice nest as far as gouldian finches homes go i suppose and every now and then she will pop by and have a look , sometimes even going inside . But the real kicker is he sometimes manages to catch her eye outside . Well its on , he pulls himself up straight then goes for it . Keep in mind these are not my finches in the video but the dance is the same although i think my little fella has better moves . He really shows his moves at about the 23 second mark .

All good you might think , handsome , has a great house , killer dancer and he still doesn't get the girl , a bit like life really . Now some facts .
From wiki .

the viable population size was estimated to be less than 2,500 mature individuals, no permanent subpopulation was known to contain more than 250 mature individuals, and that a continuing decline was observed in the number of mature individuals. It is currently subject to a conservation program.

2500 left in the wild , as an Australian that makes me feel so proud . Now for a less depressing fact .

They found females in mixed pairs produced broods that were 82.1% male, whereas females in matched pairs produced an unbiased sex ratio with 45.9% males.

The last licensed trapping of Gouldian finch in Western Australia was on 15 November 1981. In that year's finch trapping season, of the 23,450 finches taken 1,054 were Gouldian

And there are 2500 left .

en.wikipedia.org...

Hope you enjoyed the light , and sad read .

At least your bird had a mate to dance for.

I had a quaker parrot for seventeen years , sweet pea, that thought his sticks in his cage was his mate. He would hump em daily and laugh like me while he was doing it . I miss my Sweet Pea, he comes to me in my dreams.

I did experience a wild finch, yellow , that came up to me and landed on my finger.
I love birds but won't have another as a pet.

a reply to: Texcin

These are not so much pets but more of a hobby i guess . His opposition male partner has a choicr of 2 mates but i consider one unlikely . I rescued her from a breeder , she had air sac mite quite bad but i treated her and put her into the cage when she was well enough . Oh and they are orange headed .

a reply to: hutch622
Are they cage bred or aviary bred. Only ask as aviary breeding is a lot more successful.

a reply to: chewi

These are cage bred although the cage is 900mm X 1200mm X 800mm deep . They cam from smaller enclosures . In all honestly i dont think the red pair are far away from breeding but hopefully not for a week at least as we have temps of 100f forecast for the next 7 days .

Just popped in to say those are Beautiful!
I had a Cockatiel named Cookie who rode on my shoulder. We just left his cage open all the time, because when he got tired or bored, he'd go back in all by himself. It was a huge cage, but I just didn't have the heart to keep him locked up. I hated to see him try to fly and not go anywhere. You could tell he really wanted to, so when his wings grew out, I just never clipped them back. He would come flying down the hallway, yelling Cookiecookiecookie! and land on your shoulder. Or your head or your lap or pretty much anywhere he wanted.
There was an older lady who of was a friend of the family and she loved him. Her husband had died years ago in a farming accident, so she was all alone and loved it when Cookie rode her shoulder, pulled at her hair and tried to steal her ear rings. [ He was a kleptomaniac and loved anything shiny ] Long story short [ or maybe I'm too late for that ] I gave Cookie to her so she would have company and not be so lonely. He still knows me when I go to visit and he's healthy, happy and still a klepto.

a reply to: DAVID64

How nice that you let cookie go to that dear old lady . We once had a budgie who behaved just the same as cookie , except his vice was to make the dogs life hell . Actually i dont think the dog minded that much free back scratches and all .