Welcome Sunny and Rita. I have a cock canary who is dark yellowish-brown with a light colored tail. I have never seen another quite like him. He is a champion singer and Sarek is about six years old. He was a present from a friend who also gave me two other cocks and a hen; but I got hold of some greens that were unhealthy and I lost the poor babies and some of my budgies to disease.
Sarek has avoided eating any type of pellets, even the superfine type, so it is very important I give him a variety of fresh foods. He chows down on anything leafy and green, especially Romaine and kale. He likes fruits and I have actually watched him pick the seeds of the outside of strawberries; it is something amazing to watch! One day he wanted to taste what was inside of an in tact grape and he rolled the darn thing around for five minutes until one of the cockatiels shooed him away from it and took a bite out of the side. Then he took this miniscule bite of the pulp in the grape, shook his head like it was "YUCK!" and never tried grapes again. He is such fun to watch and he is the only perching bird I have in my birdroom. He hold his own against Poicephalus parrots, cockatiels, budgies, and lovebirds. He is usually squaring off with the budgies to get his fair share of greens and apples.
Since he is the smallest bird bird in my room, I am careful to make sure he is OK every time I go in to check on everyone. He had his own canary cage, but he decided it wasn't good enough for him and took over my Senegal's three by four by five foot cage and sleeps on her thermoperch every night, hiding behind her polly dolly preening toy. Since Sunny Senegal has lived cage free for the last four years, she doesn't care who is in "her" cage.....
He stopped singing in mid-August and I miss hearing him. He would sit on the handle of my patio doors and just trill his heart out! Once a week I play him some canary song, the best recordings I can get that canary breeders use to help teach their competing canaries how to sing. Beautiful canary song, until Sarek decides he wants to sing again.
