The Birdies

I bought Barbara four of these 'Love Birds' when we were courting way back when. They were such a success that we built an aviary for them, with lots of nesting boxes. They bred with such unabashed enthusism that the aviary was soon filled up with these inseperables. Eventually, we cut a narrow tube in the roof so they could stroll out into the wider world, without anything being able to get in - short of an ocasional sparrow. I now have once or twice a season sparrow hunts with a butterfly net.
The Love Birds appear to keep their inside numbers at around eighty, with various more living outside.
I feed them on a basic mixture of all-seed ('mijo') and sunflower seed ('pipa') with the odd bit of bread or celery thrown in. They are happy to nest (if they have a small-entrance box) and will put bits of appropriate nesting material - such as spikes from the ferns and palms - which they carry tucked into their back or tail feathers. I put in clumps of palm leaves occasionally which they happily take to pieces. A friend built what could only be described as council-boxes... about forty of them in two rows hung on the wall.
The weather is right for them here. A birdie expert from the UK drops by our house on his annual visit to Mojacar in the summer and invariably marvels how they breed so well. He says that he has to put little heaters into their nesting boxes back home...