The Yellow Fronted Canary (crithagra mozambica) is a popular bird to keep as a pet in northern Ghana. It has a pleasant, uplifting song and chatters all the time.
I recently ran across some boys while out exploring on my bike and they answered my question of “How do folks catch these birds?” These kids had engineered some brilliant traps to snag these canaries in the wild.
Each trap is hung from a tree with a canary already in it – its song will attract others to the trap. On the top right of the trap is a spinning wheel with a millet stalk as its axle. The canary will land on that wheel to peck at the millet in the center and it will spin and drop the bird down into the cage.
A second contraption is also added on the top left. This is a spring loaded trap door that snaps shut when a bird lands in it and pecks at the millet bait.
Kudos to these two young inventors for making such a clever contraption!