G’Day Birdie Sanctuary

08/12/2024

Quick update on things here:

The universe has apparently decided that this weekend is the time for every single bird in Victoria to need help!

Meanwhile I’m stuck in bed and can’t move without vomiting. Jack is run off his feet trying to look after everyone here while helping respond to all the calls/messages at the same time.

Our capacity is currently extremely limited - especially after taking in two baby goldfinches earlier today - so please bear with us for a few moments 😅

06/12/2024

Accurate 😂

Yay French fries

Fun fact : นกกระจอกบ้านวิวัฒนาการมา 10000 ปี เพื่อตามติดชีวิตมนุด จนมียีนคู่พิเศษที่ทำให้สามารถย่อยแป้งที่พบในพืชที่มนุดปลูกได้ ขณะที่นกกระจอกที่อาศัยอยู่ห่างจากมนุดไม่มียีนนี้

Fun Fact : House Sparrow Evolve to live along side human for 10000 years. They have a pair of genes that let them digest starchy food that found in human agriculture. That gene aren't found in non-urban House Sparrows.

04/12/2024

Callie (Callisto)

Hatched 3/8/20 - Departed 4/12/24

There are no words for how hard this post is to make. Thank you for blessing us with almost 4.5 years of chaos, mischief, and so much love. It is such a privilege to be there from the moment a life begins to the moment it ends (because alas, we must all return to the earth someday). Always living life in the fast lane - you were zooming laps around us from the second you fledged and basically never stopped. You were feisty just like your brothers and always knew how to get your own way (the trick is to scream!) You were so much personality packed into such a tiny bird - there are not enough words to describe how incredible you truly were. I am so forever grateful that you helped to show the world what amazing birds canaries are - that you were never confined to a cage as so many of your kind often are.

Rest easy, our little Weetbix thief. We love you lots and lots, forever and ever 💛

Callie now joins her sister Ganymede and daddy Ducky over the rainbow bridge 🌈

03/12/2024

Warning - graphic medical content in last image 🏥

Yuki was back to the vet today as her foot inflammation is ongoing and it’s now slightly infected again. We’re going back onto the amoxyclav to clear up the infection, this time on an extended 14 day course, and if that doesn’t improve things then we will be trying a vasodilator medication which can be used long-term alongside anti-inflammatories. Because canaries have such tiny legs, they are unfortunately prone to developing circulation issues, and poor blood flow can sometimes cause otherwise small wounds to flare up badly like this.

Dr Maddie also suggested wrapping the eucalyptus perches in vet wrap in case there is an allergic sensitivity contributing to the inflammation - not something we would have considered on our own, which is why it’s so incredibly valuable to have the insights of avian vets! We do have vet wrap here, but we always run a little low on supplies towards the end of the year, so it was handy to be able to pick up a roll at the clinic.

To the kind soul(s) who called Melbourne Bird Veterinary Clinic to credit to our vet account last time, thank you SO much. We have paid off the remaining outstanding balance for Yuki’s vet visit today, but as treatment may be ongoing, we would always appreciate any contributions towards her care. Yuki was a stray canary and was critically ill when first found, so her health history is unknown.

If you would like to donate to help Yuki’s recovery, you can do so through:
G’Day Birdie Sanctuary
BSB: 633 000
Acct: 213 300 676

Or visit PayPal.me/gdaybirdie

Or call Melbourne Bird Veterinary Clinic on 03 9764 9000 to credit directly to our account.

(Note: While we are an ACNC registered charity, unfortunately donations aren’t tax deductible).

Yuki is otherwise doing well, hopping around on her good leg and eating lots. She is just extremely unhappy about being caught for the medications and wound gel - look at that messy grumpy face 😠

02/12/2024

Remember little Regina, the lost budgie with metabolic bone disease whom we took in a few months ago?

Well guess who’s currently moulting in some new feathers, which are now allowing her to glide!! This is such wonderful progress, as when she came in as a stray she could barely flap her wings and sank like a stone (given how poor her condition was, we wonder if she was dumped by someone, as she couldn’t have ventured far). Her limp has also cleared up and she’s able to move around so much better now. You can see here that she still slightly favours one leg while resting, but her overall gait has improved dramatically.

While some of the early life damage may be irreversible, it’s amazing what a few months of quality care can do for these little guys.

Reggie is looking forward to her moult being over, but otherwise she’s very happy having lots of budgie adventures in her new life here 💛

01/12/2024

Peekaboo! An old face is peeking out from behind the toy 🤎

We had a lot of baby sparrows come through our doors last year, and one of them was St Francis. She was found as a nestling needing care right before her finders went on holiday, so we spent a few weeks raising her here before she went back home. Now her wonderful humans are off on another trip, so she’s staying with us again.

Swipe ➡️ to see what she looked like last year - her baby feathers were very scraggly (likely due to early life trauma or malnutrition) but what an absolute glow up she’s had into adulthood 😍

29/11/2024

Heads down, bums up!

This morning’s Council of Budgies meeting took an important short recess for snack time 🍽️

The main items discussed were the proposed noise limits set by the humans (unanimously rejected), and a proposed curfew for mischief, to be set at sunset (also rejected). The ongoing seed shortage was also an item of concern - it remains to be seen whether they can convince the human suppliers to deliver seed at breakfast as well as afternoon tea time (sorry featherbabies; not happening 😂)

In attendance here is Sprite Zero, Mu, Gentleman, Buggy, Lia, Princess, Thursday, Mikey, Indigo, M2, Haumea, Rio, Biscuit, Bella, and Violet.

Then barely visible on the lower floor of the Budgie Council Chamber is Bertle, Joy, Garfunkel, Graham, Luna, and Little Penguin. They of course had the option of joining the main chamber (the cage door is always open), but decided to instead rest from the chaos of the main meeting.

The other budgies were apologies to the meeting, preferring instead to holiday on the tree stands, play stands, other flight cages, or up on the curtain rail 🧡

(Note that the flight cage in this photo is currently undergoing ‘renovations’ while things are cleaned)

27/11/2024

Live locally (in Victoria) and want to help birds?

There’s a new group set up to help transport pigeons to carers 🧡

⭐️🚑Our new transport group has only been active since yesterday and we already have 23 members!

I couldn’t wait to share what this amazing team has achieved in only 2 days!

So far in only 2 days they have safely transported 7 pigeons to carers around Melbourne.

7 is only a fraction of the number of pigeons we get call outs for each day and to help more we need YOU!

If you would like to join our transportation only group, please click here to join…. https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18Gb4dDUyY/?mibextid=K35XfP

If you would like to receive more information about fostering or rescuing, please reach out to us and we will be more than happy to chat!

Thankyou to our new transport team! ⭐️

27/11/2024

Spiky Simon is still finishing up her moult, but was happy to pose for a photo 💙

We’ve made it halfway through the week. Simon believes in you to keep making it through!

(Note that Simon has splayed legs which is why her posture is a little abnormal here).

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Image Description: A blue female budgie is sitting on the open door of a bird cage, looking at the camera side-on. Her face has several pin feathers, and her body feathers are sparser than usual while she is mid-moult.

25/11/2024

We had a big vet trip day on Friday, taking five birds in for checkups for various health issues. While most of the checkups were straightforward, we had some potentially worrying findings from Callisto (pictured).

Our sweet Callie (Callisto) the canary has recently been fluffing up again and losing weight, so we took her in for a revisit where Dr Pat discovered a possible heart murmur on auscultation (listening to the heart via stethoscope) 😭

The irregular heartbeat could be secondary to something like anaemia - which would also explain the other symptoms - or it could be that she has something more serious going on with her heart itself.

Unfortunately canaries are simply too small for diagnostic blood panels, so the plan for now is to help her gain back the few grams of weight she’s lost, and then take her back in for Dr Matt to examine, so that both vets can collaborate on a management plan for her. We may end up attempting an ultrasound or ECG for further clarity, but these can also be tricky in birds as small as canaries - tiny bird means a tiny heart to try and examine!

We are so thankful to have such a wonderfully knowledgeable team of vets and nurses at Melbourne Bird Veterinary Clinic. They always treat our little residents with so much care and compassion.

With the upcoming aviary build, our sanctuary finances are a bit stretched at the moment... If you would like to donate to help cover the cost of treatment for Callie and our other resident birds, you can do so through:

G’Day Birdie Sanctuary
BSB: 633 000
Acct: 213 300 676

Or visit PayPal.me/gdaybirdie

Or call MBVC on 03 9764 9000 and credit directly to our vet account

(Note: while we are an ACNC registered charity, unfortunately donations aren’t tax deductible)

We will of course keep you all updated as we get further clarity on Callie’s potential heart issues 🧡
As you can see in the photo, she’s mostly very unhappy about being caught for weight checks while in the middle of eating lunch 🙈

24/11/2024

Sorted - transport was organised, but unfortunately the little one passed away before the transporter could even reach them 😞

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‼️ Urgent - Transport Needed‼️

There’s a juvenile sparrow in the Melton area that needs to be transported to us ASAP, as it likely needs antibiotics due to being carried by a dog. If anyone can assist, please let us know!

22/11/2024

Messy little baby faces are the sweetest 🥰

Our house sparrow bubs are almost ready to fledge!

It’s been a pretty chaotic day today - five of our adult birds had vet appointments, and we also picked up two other birds who are going to another carer - but for now just taking a moment to enjoy these tiny sweethearts 🤎

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Image Description: A baby house sparrow is perched in the palm of a person’s hand. They have a few tiny flecks of formula on their face.

22/11/2024

Uber what has happened to this baby bird?! Nobody has any information.

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For context, we work very closely with Pigeon Rescue Melbourne, who provide a fantastic service with the rescue, rehabilitation, and rehoming of non-native pigeons and doves, including nestlings. Volunteers within the PRM group occasionally need to use ride-share services such as Uber Pets and Lyft in order to get critical cases transported.

It's truly unfathomable that this has occurred, and we encourage anyone who might have any information to contact us or Pigeon Rescue Melbourne directly.

21/11/2024

A cute little starling loaf for you all today 🤎

The baby house sparrows from yesterday are now safe with us, thanks to some amazing help with transporting them across town last night. There are four of them in total, and all are doing really well. They’ve arrived just in time, as our four tree sparrows are now weaning themselves as they start to explore solid food. Always more babies to feed here at this time of year! 😂

Unfortunately our dishwasher stopped working today, despite it being brand new when we moved in four months ago… It won’t be fixed until at least Tuesday, so we’re going to have our hands full with handwashing everything for the next several days.

The broken dishwasher, combined with our quarantine areas currently being full of juvenile birds, means that we are well and truly at capacity and right now we’re unfortunately having to pass on almost all cases we are contacted about. If you find a bird in need of assistance, you’re still welcome to contact us, but be aware that we may need to refer you elsewhere. Ultimately our biggest priority has to be our existing bird flocks - we have a duty of care to them, to make sure they are being well looked after and not neglected in order to hoard endless intakes.

Things tend to change rapidly here, so we will re-evaluate how things are next week - and update once the dishwasher is (hopefully) fixed and the tree sparrows are ready to join the adult flock 🤎

20/11/2024

Our haul for the birds from the Bird Lover’s Expo!

Bulk Passwell crumbles and Greens & Grains seed from Melbourne Bird Veterinary Clinic
Floral chop topper from Unique Beaks Sanctuary
Toys from Skittles Safe Bird Toys -For Small Birds
Swings and more toys from Little Birds Toy Shop

We got lots of things for us, too, but the birds told me that only the stuff for them counts 😉

This should all keep them happy for a little while! Supporting small and local business is the best 🧡

20/11/2024

UPDATE: All sorted! 🤎

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‼️ URGENT TRANSPORT NEEDED ‼️

We have some cute young sparrows who need to come into care. They are currently at a vet clinic in Melton, and we have transport sorted as far as Coburg, but need to get them a little closer to us from there (we are in Warragul).

If you are free TONIGHT and can help transport these little ones from COBURG, please let us know ASAP. They will be secured in a cardboard box so all you have to do is drive them.

Even just getting them to Caulfield/Burwood/Camberwell/Doncaster areas would be an amazing help - we could meet you anywhere in these areas and take from there🤞

19/11/2024

A quick post to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who came to visit us on Sunday. We had hundreds of wonderful conversations and it was so nice to see both new and familiar faces!

Another shout out should go to our friends at Kiwi's New Life Bird Rescue, who organise the expo each year and have worked tirelessly to make it into the incredible event it has become.

We are still crunching a few numbers, but incredibly it looks like we may have matched last year’s effort of raising $1,000 for the sanctuary! Your amazing generosity will help fund our purpose-built, walk-through aviaries for the birds, the construction of which will be happening early next year 🎉

As wonderful as the day was, we’ve both been left utterly exhausted afterwards (chronic illness life), so we took yesterday off as a rest day, then Jack’s been back at work today while I’ve been catching up on some neglected cleaning in the bird areas. We should hopefully be back to the usual routine tomorrow, complete with a social media post or two.

For now, know that we truly love and appreciate you all. Thank you so much for helping our idea of a little sanctuary grow into the wonderful world it has become 🧡

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Want to support our work? We are a not-for-profit bird rescue and sanctuary in Gippsland, Australia. Visit gdaybirdie.org for more info.

Image Description: Text on a white background reads “THANK YOU to all those who came to see and support us at the Bird Lover’s Expo! G’Day Birdie Sanctuary”. There is then an illustration of two budgies cuddling on a perch, and a leafy border around the text.