Category: <span>Parakeets vs. Canaries</span>

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Make your figurehead a canary.

It’s just 2 days short of spring, and my canary seems to know it! Yesterday and today he? was making rusty croaking noises that are his way of trying to sing. Oh my bird, I hope you can someday, because you have the spirit within you!

So I started looking for canary songs online. A young bird doesn’t learn to sing until he’s 6 months old, so that’s why you might pay a little more for a canary – but it’s worth it! As I’ve written earlier, I pretty much think my canary is a girl, which means they didn’t put her in the song room to learn from the experienced singers, and now she doesn’t know how! :(

I won’t give up, though, so I found a few canary songs on Youtube to play for my bird every day, and maybe he/she will learn some notes. Here is a longer, pretty song on Youtube:

American Singer Canary with Waterslager Sounds

Don’t know how to upload the vid here. But anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I ever saw the word Waterslager. The only thing I don’t like is the very small cage the canary is in. Yeah, I know it’s a show cage, like the owner says, but still PAINFULLY small. I feel very bad for the bird.

Andrea the canary by Zeetz Jones

But one of the comments there has really taken my fancy, by Middledeeping:

American Singer canaries are the greatest birds ever. Mine lived? for 13 1/2 years, was the healthiest, most exuberant, adaptable pet I’ve ever owned. The pet shop owner warned me that it might take 2 wks. for him to adjust & start singing. He sang his head off in the tiny cardboard box on his way home from the shop! He drove all over the USA w/me, propped up on a pillow in the front seat w/a lap belt around his cage, looking out the window & singing. His long song was simply breathtaking.

So interesting, people are. Who drives all over the US with a canary cage in the front seat!?

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Parakeets vs. Canaries

canary care

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Help for your bird in the hardware store.

Parakeets vs. Canaries

canary design

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Tweety bird haters.

I had to point out this disgusting article about birdfighting involving canaries and finches. From the Daily Record: Police arrested 19 people from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey and seized…

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Parakeets vs. Canaries

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I took my canary for a walk today.

A neighbor friend saw me outside swinging my bird cage with canary included, and asked, “And where are you two going today?!”

Busted! Most people are at REAL jobs during the day, and so I feel free to walk around the courtyard in my raggedy shorts that are too short, and goofy top. Not to mention carrying my birdcage. But she caught me, on her way to work!


Photo by Elizabeth Dilts.

But I had my reasons for taking my canary for a walk. I recently read that canaries need a lot of Vitamin D – because they have a higher need for calcium than, say, my parakeet. And even though I carry the canary to my sunniest window every day, you can’t get that vitamin through glass. It’s also good exercise for their legs and feet and wings, to keep their balance in a swinging cage. So I’ve been taking him on walks.

I’m not the only one. Several years ago I had read in Bird Talk about canary owners in the Far East taking their birds for a walk, and meeting in a park, and this colorful idea had stuck in my mind. They must really love their birds!

Read MoreI took my canary for a walk today.

Parakeets vs. Canaries

bird cage canary

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Who’s afraid of the dark?

My parakeet.

He dreads bedtime. He crouches forward, all narrow-eyed, or jumps around, looking for a way out when there isn’t one. A Lisa Shea says:

Parakeets need to sleep 10-12 hours every day. The vast majority of this is done at night. The cave should be covered with a cloth so it is dark and they feel safe. In nature, parakeets nest in hollows they gnaw out of Eucalyptus trees. You want your cage to sort of resemble that closed-in hollow so they feel safe and protected when they sleep.


Parakeet doesn’t mind the flash, though.

That’s what I had read many times, too, but my bird thinks I’m sealing him into a coffin every night. I do cover the cage partly, but one WHOLE side is left open for him. Okay, I turn out the lights, too. Am I so bad?

Here’s a pic of a nesting box from Petco. See what they’re supposed to enjoy? A nice cozy dark hole. Not this bird.

I put my canary to bed a few hours earlier than the parakeet. A canary needs his beauty sleep, like outdoor birds, which is quite a lot of hours sleeping. I’ve had canaries in the past who don’t like to be covered, and they open their big pink mouths wide, as if to hiss. (Which is a little scary, even without teeth.)  

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Parakeets vs. Canaries

canary parakeet sleep

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Happy Labor Day, canaries everywhere!

Macys ad for labor day with canaries

I cut this out of the LA Times Magazine in 2006, as you can see. I was going to call Macy’s Department Store to compliment them on their guts and creativity, but instead I’ll write it here. I could not believe the ad agency was cool enough to be so uncool!!! Yay, Macy’s!

Canaries are such an old-fashioned bird – I think of them as Victorian, although they’ve been in cages for hundreds of years. (I thought it was about 300 or 400 years, but Animal World says it’s since 1478!) The first canary I remember loving was Pip, Amy’s bird in Little Women. I always wanted a canary since I was little, so I got one for Christmas when I was 7. My grandmother told me they always had a canary in her own family growing up…and, no, they weren’t coal miners.

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Parakeets vs. Canaries

ad canary parakeet

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Free will in a cage.

My canary has a good relationship with the sun. My parakeet likes me, but he’s disappointed; I’m just not that smart. WHY won’t I do what he wants me to??…

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Parakeets vs. Canaries

canary parakeet

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