Davis Lund Aviaries

Babblers are a huge family which includes our most popular and well-known small softbill, the Pekin Robin. Besides the Pekin, babblers include mesias, yuhinas, and laughing thrushes to name just a few. Within many of the babbler species, there are numerous subspecies often making accurate visual sexing difficult at best.

Many babblers make excellent and easy to care for softbills for the beginning softbill hobbiest. None in the family make good handable pet birds though. At the Davis Lund Aviaries, we keep several species of babblers.

Obviously the first babbler that should be discussed is the famous Pekin Robin. Often called the Chinese or Japanese Nightingale and the Red-bill Leiothrix, this bird has even had its name Pekin frequently mispelled as Peking or Peeking.

Until recently most softbillers first bird was the ever delightful Pekin Robin as it was the least expensive and most widely available softbill of them all. They were imported by the hundreds and frequently seen in pet stores usually mixed with finches. Extremely hardy, they survived the most inadequate care.

Above: Pekin Robins (Leiothrix lutea) become quite tame and approach us closely to beg for mealworms. They are difficult to breed, requiring large amounts of livefood and lots of privacy.

CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) is an agreement between many nations to regulate trade in species deemed "endangered". This does not mean that the bird is necessarily in danger of extinction as many times a species is listed for various reasons, such as a way to ensure records of transports or a bird that is very common elsewhere may be listed by one country where it is an accidental only. Once even one country lists a bird on CITES, at any level (or appendix), the USA's highly regulatory Wild Bird Conservation Act (WBCA) from 1992 effectively stops all imports into our country.

Several babblers including the Pekin Robin and the Silver-Eared Mesia were listed at the convention in June 1997. The last imports of these birds was in September 1997. Most aviculturists were not even aware of the problem until the past year or so, and the scarcity of these "bread & butter" softbills was noticed. With the exception of the few domestically bred, this means that all of the Pekins and Mesias are at least four years old and aging fast. Aviculturists must move quickly and breed domestic stock to ensure we will have both species of softbills in our future aviaries.

The trouble in developing domestic stock of most babbler species is that they are not easy to breed, and few aviculturists put effort into figuring out their breeding needs until imports stopped. It is ironic that the beginner's softbills are so easy to maintain but so difficult to breed! Some aviculturists are starting to have successes, but it will remain to be seen whether it will be "too little and too late" to save the species in the USA..

There are three basic requirements for breeding Pekins and Mesias, as well as most other babblers: large, planted aviary, privacy, & lots of livefood. Starting with a true pair is not easy to begin with because, although in most cases the male has darker and more vivid colors, the different subspecies have varied intensities of color making visual gender determinations quesswork. There are differences in the calls of the sexes, but that too can be confusing to someone who has not heard both calls for sure. It is recommended that birds be surgically or DNA sexed to ensure their gender.

Pairs should be placed in a large, densely planted flight by themselves. They should be feed the basic softbill fruit and vegetable mix with soaked and dry pellets or commercial insectivore mix and be supplied with lots of livefood. Having a fountain or waterfall system so they can hear running water may help entice them into breeding condition. They will build their own cup-shaped nest or use commercial nest baskets or half-fronted boxes. Grasses, mosses, and fine twigs are usually used in the nest construction. Nest checks should be minimized as much as possible.

Although other babbler species have been imported and kept by aviculturists for years, no other spcies has achieved the popularity of the Pekin Robin yet. Recently many babblers have been imported including the Blue-Winged Siva and several species of yuhinas or ixulus. Some of the babblers can be kept with other softbill and finch species while other like the jay-thrushes are more aggressive.

Pictured above are our Yellow-naped Yuhinas (Yuhina flavicollis) which are very active and personable small birds with soft, fluffy crests that are kept raised most of the time. They spend most of the day acrobatically searching every nock and cranny of the aviary for any kind of small insect. Like Pekins, they cuddle and preen each other. They are very quiet birds with soft calls.

1. Vince, Martin. Softbills - Care, Breeding and Conservation. Hancock House ...........................Publishers, Blaine, WA, USA. 1996.

2. Vriends, Dr. Matthew M. Encyclopedia of Softbilled Birds. T.F.H. Publications, ...........................Neptune, NJ, USA. 1980.

3. Woolham, Frank. Aviary Birds In Colour. Blandford Press. London, England. ...........................1988

4. Alderton, David. The Handbook of Cage And Aviary Birds. Blandford Press. ...........................London, England. 1993