We usually have our coffee and lunch out on the verandah overlooking our garden, a grassed area and a lovely big red cedar. Over the past week we have been watching a very energetic red-browed finch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-browed_Finch) collecting pieces of grasses and small twigs that it is using to construct a small nest hidden in a plane tree.
The bird is tiny and the twigs quite large, and its flight back up into the trees is like an overloaded plane that is struggling to lift off!
Apparently both the male and the female share in nest-building, incubation of the eggs, and feeding of the young when they hatch. We thought that the start of autumn was a strange time to begin breeding, but it seems they breed all year round, with incubation taking about 13 days. The untidy, domed nest is well hidden, but we hope to see the emergence of the chicks a couple of weeks after hatching.
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