Flock of Serin du Cap & red Fody feeding

The Serin du Cap is a very common bird species in Mauritius. Many subspecies of which the most widespread: Serinus canicollis (most frequently imported): Cape Province and Orange Free State, Serinus flavivertex: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya differs from the previous one by the more intensive yellow hues as well as by more numerous stripes. Serinus huilensis: Angola. The first year, the male and the female have an almost identical plumage: front and mask light yellow, chin, belly, rump greenish yellow. Back greenish streaked with brown, legs and beige beak. The young males differ from the females by the fact that they frequently straighten the feathers of the head. At the end of the first year, the male sees the colors intensify; the yellow becomes much brighter and the rest of the plumage is olive green, the back and the wings streaked with dark brown, almost black. These peculiarities of the plumage are to be taken into account by the breeders, because it is difficult the first year to make an absolute distinction of the sexes. This should also attract the attention of judges, because a bird of intensive yellow is rarely a bird of the year. An advice, check the diameter of the rings; if it is 2,9 mm beware (would it not be a bird of importation ringed then ???) The recommended ringing is 2,7 mm and even 2,5 mm. In terms of comparison, we can see this year that the young Cape Serin looks like a hybrid Alder Tarin + Canary where we can observe the identical stripes on an olive green.