The National Cage Bird Show (11/15/2002) - Santa Clara, CA
Judge: Paul Crow
Exhibitors: 13
Entries: 73

Judge's Comments:

None

The National Cage Bird Show (11/15/2002) - Santa Clara, CA
Judge: Paul Crow
Exhibitors: 15
Entries: 119

Judge's Comments:

The Santa Clara Valley Canary & Exotic Bird Club did a wonderful job of hosting the 54th National Cage Bird Show. The Santa Clara Convention center with the attached Westin Hotel was a modern and spacious facility. And all the talk about Exotic New Castles Disease did not stop many people from bringing their birds.

We had 119 birds in the Rare and Eyering Division with 15 exhibitors. There were 31 birds in the rare section. One lovely Nyasa who ended up being our show winner. A nice bird in good feather with good deportment who presented itself and acted like a show bird.

Next were the Black-cheeked 16 old and 4 young in these classes. Most were very nice with varying degrees of faults. Some of the bib patches were either too large or had the color bleeding into the green. There were 3 AOC Black-cheeked, one old and 2 young. One had blue wings and one had no apricot patch very interesting birds but I did not get a chance to talk to the exhibitor about them. Not too man years ago we did not see these birds on the show bench and now many more people are breeding and showing the Black-cheeked.

There was only one Madagascar brought to the national, and that was sad to see. Having raised and exhibited these birds myself I know that they can be wonderful birds to exhibit. And it just reinforces the fact that there are not many people out there breeding these birds. I fear that soon we will be losing the few birds that are here and we won't bve seeing any at all in future shows. The Madagascar had conditioning problems that kept it from placing.

There were 5 Abyssinian's, 3 old and 2 young with one placing 12th on the top bench. Nice bird but like all Abyssinian's they are hard to get into condition. they like to sit looking loose feathered and they have a tendency to have a dip in the crop area.

7 Birds from the Rare section made it to the top bench. The show winning Nyasa, the 12th place Abyssinian and 5 Black-cheeked.

The Fischer's section was the largest with 54 birds. In the nominate type 1 class there were 17 birds 2 of them young. And in the domestic type 2 class there were only 3 with 1 being young. The first place Fischer finished 3rd on the top bench. I really liked this green Fischer it had very good markings with very little yellow showing between the green and orange, very well filled out and would have done better on the top bench, but it had two scratches on the beak. 4 green Fischer's placed on the top bench. A young Dilute Fischer placed 11th owned and exhibited by Dave Arthur a fairly even colored dilute for a young bird, this bird was also best unflighted. A Blue Fischer exhibited by Cube Snell finished in 16th place on the top bench, this was a very nice blue Fischer with a nice white face, but it had some conditioning problems and it just did not want to sit on the perch. Other classes that were represented in the Fischer's section were 4 Medium Green, 1 young Dark Green, 3 Dark-factored Dilute Green, 1 Medium Blue, and 2 Young Dilute Blue. A lot of the young birds stayed on the bottom of the show boxes, which makes it very hard to see the entire bird. And when I tried to get them up they would just around and back down. Maybe in another year these young birds will be good contenders at the national. I like the Fischer's that I have been seeing at the shows and I think the breeders are doing a good job with them.

Masked section had 31 birds. The Green Masked class had 6 birds, Medium Green 2, Dilute Green 1, Dark factored Dilute 2, Blue Masked had 6 birds and the Medium Blue had 6 with one being a young bird. One dark blue and 2 dilute and 3 Dark factored dilute with 2 being young. And one AOC Masked, brought to the show by Gary Morgan, it looked pied, a very unusal looking bird. A nice Green Masked placed 5th on the top bench that bird was bred and exhibited by Barbara Theeke. Most of the masked had trouble staying on their perches and because of that they really managed to mess up their feathers so it was a hard section to judge as again there were conditioning problems. The color of most of the masked was good. But size was lacking in the dilute blue. We had a nice representation of the lot of the local shows the numbers have been down in this section. So not given up on working with the Masked Lovebirds, as it seems to me that some work is still needed to get the size up in some of the masked mutations.

There were 3 Champions, none of which wanted to show very well that day. Two made it to the top bench, Barb Theeke's Green Fischer's placed 10th on the top bench with Lee Horton & Roland Dubuc's Nyasa placing 13th. A third Champion Green Fischer, didn't make the top bench.

A lot of the birds at this show would not settle down and sit on the perches in the show box. I could not decide if it was because they are the "Rare and Eyerings" and they tend to be more flighty. Or if they needed more training or if it was the show hall. It was a large hall and it was noisy, but most Nationals and shows are held in one big hall. I don't know what made some of these birds act so nervous. I tried to stay back away from the show boxes to give them time to settle in but nothing really seemed to work that day.

Again this year there was controvery over a Nyasa, this time it was the first place show winner. Some people thought that the bird had too many color faults for it to be a good representation of a Nyasa. Others thought that it is the best representation of what there is available to us here at this time. Controversy like that just shows how important it is to get our species standards done and in the hands of Judges, breeders, and exhibitors, so that we can all see and know what is considered a good, "Blue Fischer's" or a good "Black-Cheeked" or a good Nyasa. I know this all takes time and that our current chairman, Gary Morgan has really pushed to get these standards done but it is a long and tedious task that takes time and cooperation. Getting the standards out even if they are in draft form was discussed at the National meeting and those notes will be published in this journal.

I want to thank my secretary, Janice, and my stewards, Roland, Dave, and Barb. And my ribbons tier Wendy. And a special thanks to all the exhibitors who traveled so far to bring your birds out to the show for me to judge, they were all good birds and judging them was a tough job! I hope to see y'all in Texas in 2003.