The Blue Capped Cordon Bleu Waxbill

(Uraginthus cyanocephalus)

Male: Complete and brighter blue cap and chest and tail feathers. Sings a complex and louder song.
Female: Blue sides of head and lower chest and tail feathers, lighter blue than male. Does a light mimic of the male song at dusk. Usually double tweets in a tone just a little lower than the male. Tail vibrates fast when she is ready to mate.
Size: little longer than 3 inches...tail is about a third of body length
Feeding: Mine eat MEALWORMS. . .Yummm good! They sit and wait for them in the morning, their favorite thing. . .This sounds disgusting, but they bite, it's either the head or the tail off, hard to say. . .I would rather not examine closely. . .and then they squeeze the guts out the end and eat it. They leave the empty squeezed out shells on the floor of the cage. They also eat regular seed mixture, petamine, some exotic small seeds, millet spray always a favorite, veggies, pretty much anything I put in. My biird advisor did tell me we will do bloodworms when the babies hatch. Other than worms, which they throw to the floor of the caage when they have bitten the end off, they eat EVERYTHING from the floor of their cage. They will not use the food cups so I removed them and spread all their food on the ground.
Suitable cagemates: Mine are alone in their cage, but I also have Zebras in other cages. They could care less what the Zebras do. This drives the Zebras nuts. (I have my one male in with 2 Orange Cheeks and although they aren't close, they don't fight)
Breeding: The male does what is called a 'grassdance', where he takes a bit of nesting material and holds it straight out in front of him and double clicks his feet on the branch and then bobs up and down and waves the grass and sings a very complex warble. He preferred to use wheatgrass to any storebought nesting material. Mine have been mating frequently and currently have 5 eggs. The female has not yet started to set, and both male and female prefer to sleep on a branch at night rather than in a nest. (Fostering might be suggested under Zebras)
Temperament: Mine show no fear at all and do not even attempt to leave the cage with the door wide open. They stare and cock their heads when you look at them closely. They sit on their worm bowl every morning and wait for me. They talk only to each other with about 3 different types of calls and have nothing to do with the 'flock' mentality of the Zebras in the same room. They LOVE a large bath for their water! Mine actually floats on the water like a duck a little each morning and they both get soaked a couple of times a day.



Thanks to Saraberry for her contribution of this article!

Related Species

Red Cheeked Cordon Bleu
Blue Breasted Cordon Bleu

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