Three Years In The Making

After a break from keeping the charismatic dusky munia, in 2016 NEIL BICKELL decided to start up with this species again. But the road ahead wasn’t easy, with problems sourcing new stock, breeding challenges and messy nests.

- Neil Bickell

FOREIGN BIRDS

HAVING sold all of my dusky munias (Lonchura fuscans) in 2012 and then deciding I wanted to take up this species again in 2016, I found it extremely difficult to get hold of some new stock. This is a very underrated mannikin, probably due to the birds being rather dull in colour – a mottled black and brown all over with a black and silver beak.

After putting a few posts on various groups on Facebook with no joy, I had more or less given up trying to find any. Thankfully, only a week or so before the 2016 National Exhibition my prayers were answered. Dave Harris, a fellow Waxbill Finch Society (WFS) member and chairman of the Australian Finch Society (AFS), had a pair available that I could collect from Stafford.

Whenever you decide to keep a new bird species I fully recommend doing as much research as you can. A phone call or a few emails to the breeder can usually help tenfold compared to what you may find online. You can’t always believe what you read on the World Wide Web either. Luckily, I can look back on several years’ experience keeping these great little munias and breeding more than 50 chicks.

When I picked the birds up from Stafford, I can only describe the feeling as a kid in a sweet shop. I was so pleased to have a pair again. It does make me think that I should give it some real thought if I decide to ever sell up or move on from a particular species again, because it is not always that easy to get hold of certain birds. I was very lucky.