Rescuing Baby Finches

Finches are interesting buggers. Zebra finches in Australia have been studied because they have regional accents; yes, you really can tell which part of their range they're from by listening to the song. You can measure it. Turns out they listen to their dads and imitate his song, and because no copying process is perfect, geographic distance correlates with dissimilarity, exactly as it does with human language, or exactly as time correlates with genetic distance. What's really interesting is that if these birds have a mutation in a gene that is also important to humans for learning to speak grammatically (yes, really) they also have trouble producing a coherent song. They even have rules for "grammar" themselves - that is, song structure that are apparently biologically built-in a la Noam Chomsky and Derek Bickerton, which all zebra finches obey. House finches in North America (those little red-headed grey-bodied guys) follow similar rules. Consequently they've been studied as a non-human model of language acquisition.

What's far more important than all this is that the babies are SO DARN CUTE.




Here's one where the little sister didn't blink:




Last night these two little dummies jumped out of their nest right by my bedroom window - prematurely, apparently, because only the larger one could sustain flight for even a few seconds. Mom and dad were flying around like maniacs looking for them and after a few tense moments, they finally found the shrub where one had landed and where I placed the other one. After this picture was taken a kind and skilled neighbor (good combination) made a little nest for them with cotton and cloth and a foil cover, anticipating a cold night, and I put in some seeds for them. They were doing okay as of this morning but I haven't seen mom and dad go in there to feed them yet. I'll post updates on the progress of these guys.