Canary

Looks how to spot one

feathers

A small finch with a short, cone-shaped seed-eating bill and a neat, rounded body. The wild bird is streaky greenish-brown with a yellow-green face and breast, but centuries of selective breeding have produced clear yellow, orange-red, white and patterned birds. Some breeds carry a crest, some are tall and upright, and frilled breeds have long, curling feathers.231

Personality what they are like

Canaries are gentle, fairly reserved birds that enjoy being observed more than being handled. Males are the singers: they sing to mark territory and attract a mate, often starting early in the morning, and the amount of song follows the length of the day. Most hens sing little or not at all.13

Daily activity how busy a day looks

Canaries get their exercise by flying rather than climbing, so they need a long cage or an aviary with room to fly from perch to perch. RSPCA guidance for pet birds recommends daily time out of the cage in a safe space, plus natural perches placed to encourage flight.51

Grooming and care the hands-on bits

Canaries keep themselves tidy by preening and enjoy a shallow bath. Offer natural wooden perches of mixed thickness, clean food and water daily, and keep the cage in a steady, draught-free spot with a regular day-night light rhythm, which also supports song.51

Home where they are happiest

RSPCA guidance: cage height, width and depth at least twice the bird's wingspan (more if kept as a group, about 5% extra per small bird); aviaries at least four times the wingspan of the largest bird, with shelter and shade. Suitable temperature roughly 12-26 C, with flicker-free UV lighting for indoor birds.5

Food basics what goes in the bowl

Wild canaries eat mainly weed and grass seeds, figs and other plant material plus some small insects. For pets the RSPCA suggests a complete pellet as the main food, fresh vegetables and a little fruit, and, especially for canaries and finches, washed wild greens such as dandelion, chickweed or groundsel; seed as a smaller part of the diet. Fresh water always, and no avocado.26

Company who they like around

Canaries are one of the few pet birds content to live singly, and a lone male often sings more. They can also be kept in groups in a roomy cage or aviary, as long as every bird has space to fly and to get away from the others.17

The story where it all began

The wild ancestor lives on the Atlantic islands of Macaronesia, and the islands gave the bird its name; the Canary Islands themselves were named after dogs. Sailors carried canaries to Europe around the late 1300s or 1400s, and for a time Spain protected its trade by selling only males. A popular story tells of a ship wrecked near Livorno around 1550 whose canaries escaped and bred in Italy, ending that monopoly. By the 1600s monks and German breeders, especially in the Tyrol and later the Harz Mountains, were breeding them widely; the classic all-yellow bird emerged in the 17th century and white birds were common in Germany by 1700. Miners brought canaries to the Upper Harz around 1730, where the soft-voiced Harz Roller was developed. Britain and other countries created many shape and posture breeds, and in the 1920s crossing with the red siskin produced red-factor colours. From around 1900 canaries were used in British coal mines as early warning of dangerous gas, until electronic detectors took over in 1986.143

Recognised by the official bits

Selective breeding (general)

Domestic canaries are grouped into three main kinds: song canaries (e.g. Harz Roller, Belgian Waterslager, Spanish Timbrado), colour-bred canaries (e.g. yellow, red factor, white) and type or posture canaries (e.g. Fife Fancy, Gloster, Norwich, Yorkshire, Lancashire, frilled breeds).1

Popularity In the Netherlands, where several million canaries are reportedly kept, a Dutch bird-keeping association issued about 600,000 canary leg rings in 2009.1