Greater Kansas Avicultural Society (10/21/2006) - Parkville, MD
Judge: Phil Ryan
Exhibitors: 7
Entries: 88

This club has been putting on shows for many years and is one of the few left in the Midwest still conducting an annual show. Their experience shows. The show was well organized, the venue was excellent, and their banquet was very well done. The show was held in different meeting rooms on the hotel. As a result, the noise level was tolerable because the different divisions were separated.

We had a total of 88 Love Birds entered from 6 exhibitors. There were three classes of Rares totaling 5 birds. It was nice to see that people are working with these. We had 2 Black-cheeked, 2 Nyasa's, and 1 Abyssinian. The Nyasa's still need some work on getting them back to standard but progress is being made. The Abby was a nice bird in good color but a little small. Black-cheekeds have certainly become popular and did well in the final standings.

There were 16 Fischer's entered and one was as close to perfect as I have ever seen. We have created a problem by making the distinction between nominate and domestic. The ideal for the nominate includes a dark head and the ideal for the domestic includes a light color on the top of the head. The bird I had was intermediate between the two - therefore not ideal for either standard. Nonetheless, it was a great bird with the bib as close to ideal as I have ever seen. We had 2 Masked entered and they were not really up to show condition.

There were 64 Peachfaced entered in competition plus one Champion for a total of 65. The largest section was 14 entries in Green Peachfaced followed by 12 entries in Blue. There were some excellent pieds in both blue and green, showing very good symmetry. The top pieds also showed very good distinction between the light and dark colors as opposed to the tendency to fade from one color to the other. The Whitefaced entries all had very good to excellent clarity in the foreheads. There were some birds which showed characteristics of Long Feather - red forehead, face and bib, very wide bodies, or a forehead line which went straight across the top of the head from eye to eye - but without any further evidence I could only judge them to the common standard for Peach Faced - a red forehead with a lighter cheek and bib, a body proportion fit for a Peach Faced, and a forehead line which curves toward the cere.

The winner was an Orangefaced Medium Green, second was the very nice Fiscerhs' and third was a Medium Green Peachfaced. We went to 13 places and the Abyssinian hen was number 13. The top novice exhibitor bird was a Whitefaced Blue. The Champion bird would have placed third and might have been higher except that it was very much overweight. The exhibitor said it was a male but it looked like it was about to lay an egg.

My thanks to Maria and Tony Michel for their hospitality and the long drives to the airport and to the entire membership of GKCAS for putting on a fine show. Anthony Day, the president, conducted the proceedings at the banquet which honored long time judge, Harold Sodoman. I also need to thank Kendall Crosby for performing the job of Secretary and Tom Voges for his work as Steward. Melissa Voges placed the ribbons for us. It is always nice to see them and our other ALBS members who were at the show.

Philip J. Ryan