The National Cage Bird Show
(11/16/2001) - Manchester, NH
Judge: Philip J. Ryan
Exhibitors: 23
Entries: 161

Judge's Comments:

Beautiful weather in New Hampshire in the middle of November - wow! And a "houseful of birds" to go with it. It had been almost 20 years now that the ALBS has had a division in the National show. It seems to get better every year in many ways. Almost 20 years ago we added the 2nd ALBS division for RARES and Eyerings.

We had 161 entries in the Peachfaced Division from 23 exhibitors. With the travel concerns, added difficultires and expenses for transporting birds, and the economy concerns, that is an outstanding turnout. The largest section was Green Peachfaced with entries and smallest section was Green Pied Peachfaced with 9 entries. The new section for Longfeathered birds had 26 entries. There were 6 Champion birds present.

Our stewards got to work early and the birds were ready for judging at 8AM Friday. With a short break for lunch we were finished by shortly after 4PM. Thanks to the secretary, Jean Wiley, for keeping track of the pace of judging to ensure that we finished on time.

The first item of business was the judging for a new Division at the National Show. In order to encourage young exhibitors to take up the hobby of breeding and exhibiting, the NCBS (National Cage Bird Show) board established a Youth Division limited to "young" exhibitors. Birds of any kind entered by the young exhibitors were judged by the division judges separately, then taken for a "Best Young Exhibitor" award. We had 1 Love Bird in the Youth Division and it won the $1000 scholarship for its owner as the best bird in the Youth Division. Congratulations!

This turned out to be the day of the Orangefaced. Almost all birds were in good condition with good feather quality and condition. The birds which didn't come all the way up had proportion problems for the most part. I look gor good head and body proportion, including the beak, brow, and eyes. Size can count, but it is difficult to maintain proportion and increase size. The Orangefaced birds which placed highly had good size and the head, beak and brow proportions were excellent.

As Orangefaced Australian Cinnamon placed first and was taken to the "Best in Show" judging before the tag was opened. This bird was in excellent condition and had the "extra" of sheen, depth of color and uniformity of color. The 2nd place bird was an Orangefaced Pied with outstanding pied qualitiies - side to side symmetry and excellent contrast between the light and dark areas. Third was a Whitefaced Violet, followed by an Americn Cinnamon Longfeathered. The next 2 birds, 5th and 6th, were a Green Orangefaced and an Orangefaced Australian Cinnamon. One more Orangefaced placed at 19th.

The judge's award went to the 14th place bird, a Whitefaced Blue with white flight feathers. When I saw this bird I had no idea what it was since it did not have the traditional break-up in the forehead seen in pieds. It looked like a very poorly marked pied since only the flights were light with 1 dark feather on each side. After the show the exhibitor said the birds have been around for about 6 years, that it does breed true, and only the males show the light flights. This is an interesting development and I hope we see more of it soon. The individual bird entered had good proportions but was a bit on the small side as might be expected for a new mutation.

The 6 Champion birds all made the top bench, ranging from 5th to 20th. There was a brief discussion concerning my preference to NOT judge the Champions as a section first. I would prefer them on the top bench directly. They would end up in the same order by placing them that way with the added benefit that they would be moved around less. The audience preferred to have them judged according to the statement in the handbook so that is what we did.

The large number of entries in the Longfeathered section brought up several interesting points and generated a lot of discussion. The largest of the Longfeathered birds present had very obviously different body proportions from the Peachfaced standard. I announced to the audience that, since there was no current standard for the Longfeathered birds, I would judge them on the same qualities I use for Peachfaced Love Birds in general after all, this was the Peachfaced Division. The result was that the largest birds were not selected. Of the birds in this section which most looked like Peachfaced. One was placed 4th over all and another was placed 11th.

Ten of the 23 exhibitors placed in the top 20, which is a good indication of the level of competition. The best unflighted bird was a Whitefaced Medium Blue and the Best Novice Exhibitor bird was an Australian Cinnamon Violet.

One of our former judge's, Al Decoteau, had some medical problems while at the show. I am happy to report that he is out of the hospital and the problem, while serious at the time, is no longer an issue.

My thanks to the exhibitors who braved the prevailing conditions to bring tha many birds to the show. It made for a lot of interesting discussion and was appreciated by all present. Special thanks to the NCBS folks and the member of BOAF, the local club which sponsored the show, for all the work they put into making this a great show. Also, I greatly appreciate the work done by the stewards - Janet Landvater, John Gossweiler, and Dave Arthur - and the ribbon tiers - Doree Bedwell and Allison Hoffman. As always, the secretary job was well done by Jean Wiley.

The National Cage Bird Show
(11/16/2001) - Manchester, NH
Judge: Leslie Wagner
Exhibitors: 14
Entries: 70

Judge's Comments:

Rares: 15, Fischer's 14, Masked 11, Champion: 3

RARES SECTION:

Exhibited were 1 Nyasa, 9 Black-cheeked (4 Old, 5 Young), and 5 Abyssinian (4-O, 1-Y).

The Rares section winner was the Nyasa, perfect condition, conformation, and deportment. Second in section was an old Black-cheeked very nice bird whose only faults I observed to be a slight condition issue with a tail feather and not the stellar deportment of the Nyasa. Third in section was a nice Abby hen, lacking in size, her head (esp. beak) seemed out of proportion to her body.

General Notes:

In the Black-cheeked classes I only noted 1 bird with a slight hint of violet shading in the rump. The Black-cheeked eye color was variable, ranging from a medium brown to black. The Black-cheeked throat patch not only varied greatly in size, but also color intensity. Two of the entries patch extended halfway down their abdomens. There were numerous condition issues with the Abbys, keeping them out of the points.

Fischer's Section:

Exhibited were 11-Green(Nom.), 1-Green(Dom.), 1-Dk, Green, 4-Dil. Grn(50%), 3-Dk. Fact. Dil. Green (50%), 6-Dil. Green (80%), 2-Lutino, 2-Green Spangled, 4-Blue, 2-Med. Blue, 1-Dil Blue (80%), 2-Blue Spangled, 1-Pied.

The Fischer's section winner was a beautiful green bird, on the smaller side but had excellent condition, color, and conformation - the bird had no evidence of yellow feathering in the bib area, just pure orange all the way around!

Second in section was a dilute green bird, also the Best Novice entry (congrats): great condition and conformation, did not perch as well as the 1st place bird and I might have considered it for the top spot had it done better, most notable was the excellent hood color - very even shading down to the nape or the neck.

Third in section was a medium Green Spangle, a new mutation for us on the show bench - most impressive was the size, definately eats Wheaties! A description of the bird, as follows: approx. 50% dilution of the body color, the wings appeared darker/brigher (I assume from being a medium factored bird). The back and to a lesser extent the tertials and secondary flight feathers displayed the "lacing" characteristics of this mutation. Similar to the Peachfaced Dilute mutation.

Fourth in section was a nice medium Blue, whose crown and cheeks were as white as snow - very strikingly beautiful.

General Notes:

I re-classed 4 Green from the Domestic to the Nominate class - No surprise there! There was only 1 bird that I felt was truly a Domestic type. While judging the Nominate class it was very obvious that there were maybe 3 (out of 9) birds that were of the Nominate type, and the other 6 were somewhere in-between. This observation is very similar to the issue we had years ago when the PF mutation. Most of the birds being shown were of the "poor Whitefaced" variety (a.k.a. Pinkies), ending up in Whitefaced, Seagreen, and Blue Classes. Over the years, through selective breeding, the mutation has evolved to the beautiful birds we have on the show bench today and so too will follow the Fischer's. I wanted to mention the Domestic bird because of the difficulty in breeding such a clear colored bird. I felt it scored a 24 (out of 25) for color, but I felt the conformation was not correct (unfortunately) I did not make note of the particular problem) and there were some minor condition issues.

The Nominate/Domestic issue also occurs in Blue series birds. It was especially evident in the Blue class where I had birds that had clear crown and cheeks (no grey shading) and others where it ranged from a hint of a grey wash to a dark sooty color.

Many of the birds in this section had condition and deportment issues. The size of the birds, particularly the dilute classes seemed on the large size. I unfortunately forgot my incremented stick, so my assesment is purely anecdotal!

Masked Section:

Exhibited were 2-Green, 1-Med. Green, 3-Dk fact. Dil Green (50%), 1-Med. Blue, 2-Dil. Blue, 2-Dk fact. Dil. Blue (50%).

First section was a gorgeous Dilute Blue, very well marked and an especially good even-colored hood. Second was a medium Green, very well marked with good size. Third was a nice Green bird.

General Notes:

The Masked were the best conditioned group, but had the most color faults. Lots of "runny", not well defined areas. In the green series, the hood color seemed to be getting nearer the ideal - sooty with no warm tones. In fact the 2nd and 3rd in section birds were very close to the ideal, they also had the best color separation. There was only 1 bird that displayed significant orange feathering below the lower mandible, the other had a thin line of feathers. The 2nd in section bird didn't appear to have any, a remarkable accomplishment considering it was a dilute medium green.

Champions:

1st Black-cheeked, 2nd Nyasa, 3rd Fischer's

The Black-cheeked went on to become my Best in Show bird, quite an exceptional entry. I compared it to the best class Black-cheeked, the Champion had more iridescent quality to its feathers, sat like any Abby on the perch, and was flawless. The Nyasa was another great bird making it all the way to 4th in show, had one teensy little condition issue that kept it from going higher.