The miserable weather is taking its toll. I managed to catch a cold - in July! I am better now.
The same can't be said of my pet canary - I had 5 of them, and one was looking a bit off colour. It was the youngest of them, a 1 year old female and bred by me, from parents I had bred myself, nice looking and a real character. I couldn't find anything obviously wrong, and by the evening she was looking a bit better, so I assumed it was nothing serious. They all settled down for the night, and soon afterwards that one fell off her perch, dead.
I have had many pet birds, but never one that died so suddenly. I heard it falling and found it directly under the perch with wings closed, so I assume it literally fell down dead.
I don't know if this had anything to do with the unusual weather, but it seems to be a bad year for breeding animals. The three female canaries, including that one, have nested and laid eggs, but they have not had a single fertile egg between them. The goldfish are chasing each other around, but no sign of spawn on the plants.
I have seen tiny goldfish of barely a year old, chasing each other as if spawning. They have probably been exposed to several changes of temperature, and for them, each warm/cold cycle is a year, so they think they are several years old.
