Talk about bird, have you ever think why people like and keep it at home? Some people said it may because of the tweet. Yeah, it is true. Some birdsong has beautiful tweet which can make your day or just calm your mood, you can hear their tweet loud in the morning, or also you can make it as sound mark or natural alarm. Well many things that we can find if we talk about their tweet. Besides the tweet, why people pet a bird is because they are also loves their feathers. The beautiful feathers can increase their value both in market and competition. The more color in their body, the more increase their value. The tweet and the feathers are perfect combination why people usually pet some birds in their home. This perfection owned by finch.
Finch is a popular bird that can we meet easily in home settlement. We know it is stereotype, but usually finch pet by old man like our father, uncle, or grandfather. This bird has medium, it is around 20 centimeters measured from the tip of the beak to the tip of the tail. Their back and their tail colored dark chocolate and their throat, chest, and tummy colored white and gray, and their head is black. And also, their eyes are red and black for their beak and foot.
In their wild life, Finch likes to visiting opened place, side of road, garden, shrubs, and secondary forest until 1600 meters from water surface. They are like to colony, both when looking for their food and when perch. This bird can also easily meet in city forest.
If we pet some animals we have to know what the right food that should we give to them, right? The main food for finch is soft fruits like papaya and banana. This kind of fruits chosen cause its soft texture so the flinch can eat it easily. For baby finch, you need to smooth it before give it to them. It is suggested for you to boil it first. Beside fruits, finch also eats some insects like grasshopper, butterfly, caterpillar, and etc. Therefore, this bird is friend with farmer because they eat plant pests.
Every morning, finch has unusual habit like other animals. This habit is sun bathing. Beside it, finch will up their topknot when they are happy. So it is important to you to keep cheer them up if you want to see their beautiful topknot, dear pet owners.
Now let’s move on to their uniquely that cause them to be popular pet bird. All the reasons are written below:
- Easy-tamed and quick survivor
This are mainly reason why people like this bird to be pets at home. Some pet owner even said that they like to pet and tamed the finch than pet other bird which can only tweet. Their skill to be quick survivor effect to their population. Even degradation of environment threat their population decrease, their skill to be quick survivor helps them to survive.
- Practical economy value
As mentioned before, finch is like to be pet bird because their food is easily to find. Besides, the food price is cheap. So there is no loss to using them as pet bird. Both of budget treatment and their skill are worth it.
- Natural detector
In 2011, research prove that finch can be disaster natural detector which can alarm people when the disaster coming. How’s come? Three child of Papua named Yohana Oprawiri, Demira Yikwa, and Albertina Beanal tried to insert finch to the multi sensor (switching) cage. The out of cage directly connect with micro controller, motor, bell, solar panel, and battery. When stimulator gives to finch, this bird will crash them self to the cage. This multi sensor cage will give you sign as ringing the bell that warned you that the disaster is coming. Why is finch use for this research? They are assumed that their natural behavior can inform us by their panic-easy behavior. As we see during research process, finch will crash them self to the cage as effort to escape from disaster. So we can assume that finch can be disaster natural detector. Well, new information for you who considerate to pet this bird.
- Smart imitator
They are can imitate some voices of other bird as same as the original. This fact also causes them to be hunt and killed. Some people rate that finch can being a threat for other birdsong and decrease the value, especially during competition. For people who looking for medium price birdsong, they can choose finch for alternative option. But people who feel that they already invest their money to grab the pricey bird, of course they don’t want his bird imitating by other. This fact is so sad.
- Good survivor prove
If you need more information to prove that finch is smart bird, well this information may be will open your mind. In 2017, some finch in Mexico has unusual habit. They are looking for cigarette butt and insert it into their nest. Constantino Macias Garcia from Mexico University and friend already spend her time to learn that habit. She guessed that chemical inside in cigarette butt using for help finch to block out the insect pests. To confirm it, Macias Garcia with her team did the trial to 32 finch nests. A day after the egg cracked, researchers move the original nest layer and change it with synthetic layer. It purposed to get lost some pests which may already entered during incubate process. After that, researchers add the flea to 10 nests, and dead-flea to other 10 nests, and other 12 nests is flea-free.
Researchers find that finch significantly add cigarette filter to their nest if there is flea. With new materials, the nest will 40 times heavier than dead-flea nest. The result said that finch using to cigarette filter to ‘repair’ their nest against flea. “Ectoparasites like flea and mites cause damage to the finch such as eating their feathers and sucking blood”, she said. Therefore, the use of cigarette butt is not without risk. Macias Garcia’s research previously called cigarette butt had the effect of damaging genetic finch. “Cigarette butt can cause genetic damage to finch by interfering cell division which we know after seeing their red blood cells”, Macias Garcia said.
Meanwhile, Steve Portugal from Royal Holloway, University of London assessed the strange habit of finch is being an example of innovation in the world of animals. By utilizing the material around, finch protect their baby. “It is enchanting and an interesting example of innovative animal and they are using used materials which available to them. I think the anti-parasitic effects given by cigarette butt must outweigh the negative problems they cause”, Portugal said. “As an alternative, the genotoxic effect takes longer to make it happen, and adult birds are not aware of any problems”, he added. Well, conclusion that we can learn from this point is, finch is smart bird and their skill as survivor and smart survivor is really proved on this case. They can use the object that we think it is really unuseful.
That’s all the information for you about the interesting facts of finches as popular pet bird. So are you still hesitated to pet finch at your home?