Innholdsfortegnelse for April 9, 2025 i Cage & Aviary Birds

SHOWS THE GENERAL LICENCE (GL) for Scotland has been updated and the wording rectified, following the news that the use of the wrong term meant that, on paper, bird shows and sales were banned in Scotland (see News, March 5). When the Scottish GL on bird gatherings was updated in February 2025, Section 6 said that show/sales organisers could not be licensed to admit birds that had come from an avian flu Prevention Zone, when it should have used the term Protection Zone. As the whole of Scotland is in a Prevention Zone, this effectively disallowed bird shows and sales in Scotland. Alan Philson, secretary of Irvine & District CBS, noticed the mistake and contacted the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) to clarify the situation. “Scotland’s birdkeepers are indebted…

THANK GOODNESS FOR the better weather and lengthening days. How my birds come alive and are hugely stimulated to breed, hopefully helping to ensure that the next breeding round inside my birdroom is bountiful. I am up to approximately 80 babies now, but short of baby hens for next year. I am hoping for another 10-15 hens before I wind down my breeding pairs. On the Budgerigar Society (BS) front, I attended the Stafford Spring Show on March 2. I travelled up with fellow fancier, Andrew Luke, and our car journey allowed us to natter about all things budgerigars. The chat and banter on the drive is often half the fun. The Stafford Spring Show was well attended and I was encouraged by the long queue of visitors waiting to…

PARROTS IF SUCH a thing as a typical parrot exists, it is certainly not the ground parrot (Pezoporus wallicus) of Australia. Its scientific name of Greek origin, Pezoporus, means “going on land” or “pedestrian” or “on foot”, and perfectly describes this ground-hugging parrot that is rarely seen in flight (or even, for that matter, on the ground). This is because the preferred habitats are heathland, sedgeland and button-grass (Dactyloctenium radulans) plains where the shy and elusive ground parrots inhabit the dense herbage within which they run and conceal themselves with ease. In its favoured habitats, the eastern ground parrot is found along the eastern seaboard of mainland Australia and in Tasmania, whereas the western ground parrot has an isolated and restricted distribution in south-west Australia. Depending on the taxonomic authority,…

CANARIES THIS year, I broke with my own tradition and paired some of my birds up during March. That is earlier than my usual start and I have done it for a simple reason, that I want to get a few birds ready and self-reliant earlier than usual, because I am going away for a few days in June on a judging trip to Brazil. My grandsons will care for my birds in my absence, and I want to make it easier for them at the busiest time of the UK canary calendar. Whether this will prove to be a wise decision, we shall have to wait and see. I am not doing it for numbers. There is little point now in producing more birds than you personally need to…

CLUB NEWS NORTHAMPTONSHIRE BS has announced a new meeting venue. Meetings will now take place at the Doddridge Community Centre, 109 St James Road, Northampton NN5 5LD. See our ‘What’s on’ section (right) for the latest meeting from the society. For enquiries, contact Carl Parker on 07597 275 319. PORTKNOCKIE CBS will hold its April sale on April 20 in the McBoyle Hall, Portknockie, Buckie, Banff AB56 4NE, doors open 11am. Entry is £2 and includes Lewis’s legendary sausage rolls, chocolate hobnobs and all the tea and coffee you can drink. Bags of sawdust will be available at £1 a bag. The club’s seed table will be there as will the table of feeding and breeding equipment, so come along and get stocked up for the breeding season. For seed…

SEABIRDS A WILD GANNET (Morus bassanus) that was found caught in fishing hooks and angling wire on a Northumberland beach has been successfully treated and released back into the wild. A member of the public found the gannet on the beach near Druridge Bay Country Park car park on March 13. RSPCA animal rescue officer (ARO) David Dawson collected the bird and took it to a local vet who removed the hooks using stitch scissors. It was then taken to Pawz4Thought animal rescue in Sunderland. Mr Dawson said: “This poor gannet could not walk and was totally incapacitated. There were three fishing hooks caught in the bird, one in each wing and one in the corner of the beak – it was in great distress… “This incident again demonstrates how…

TRAVEL MAGPIE shrikes perched in loose groups were communicating constantly with each other, before flying off as one in search of prey. This is a species bred by Cage & Aviary Birds correspondent Gary Bralsford, as he mentioned in his regular softbill bulletin last week. Gary received a first breeding award from the Foreign Bird League in 2010 and a report of his methods was published in the Spring 2011 edition of Foreign Birds. Other species seen on the trip (that would be more familiar to birdkeepers) were a family of ostrich, pin-tailed whydah, green singing finch, blue waxbill, lesser masked weaver, southern ground hornbill, dark-capped bulbul, crested barbet and southern red bishop, among a myriad of others. Southern ground hornbills, informally known as “thunderbirds”, are endangered and there is…

SCIENCE THE way in which an animal conducts itself in a particular situation or responds to a stimulus is expressed as a form of behaviour. Behaviour is a natural response to both external and internal stimuli. Although we cannot physically see what is going on inside the body, a bird’s body posture and behaviour can help us to shed light on whether the bird is healthy or sick. Behaviour and posture should be viewed as a form of non-spoken language. “Sickness behaviour” is the name scientists give to the way an animal answers to a disease, physical injury, or psychological stress factor and which helps to promote recovery. For example, an animal could be hobbling, which indicates that it has an injury, or shivering, which is a clue that it…

PLUMAGE Hein van Grouw is the senior curator of birds at the Natural History Museum at Tring, Hertfordshire…

BASILDON CBS – April 14, Felmores Community Centre, Northland’s Park, Basildon, Essex SS13 1SD, 7:30pm. Meeting. Enquiries: 07880 707 502. BRISTOL BS – April 14, Little Stoke Baptist Church, Kingsway, Little Stoke, Bristol BS34 6JW, 7pm. Meeting. Enquiries: 07748 740 794. COLCHESTER CBS – April 17, Stanway Village Main Hall, Villa Road, Stanway, Colchester, Essex CO3 OHR, 7.45pm. Topic talk by Fiona Hutchings from the Essex Field Club. Enquiries: 07484 688 334. GATESHEAD & NEWCASTLE BS – April 9, Swalwell Community Centre, 74 Clavering Road, Swalwell, Newcastle upon Tyne NE16 3ET, 7pm. Speaker Steve Wilson. Enquiries: 07530 996 570. GRANTHAM CBS – April 10, Railway Club, Huntingtower Road, Grantham, Lincolnshire NG31 7AU, 7.30pm. Talk by Keith Ferry on getting your birds ready for showing. Enquiries: 07734 923 477. HIGH WYCOMBE…

HAITH'S GIVEAWAY WINNERS THE WINNERS OF the March Haith’s giveaway to win a choice of a 1kg bag of BRAVO! Budgie Seed or De Luxe Canary Seed are as follows: Robert Townsley, Northumberland; Anthony Cahill, London; Graham Matthews, South Yorkshire; Anthony Chappell, Gloucestershire; William Stephen, Scotland; Brian Sheldrake, Norwich; Gordon Christie, Banffshire; Karen Walker, Isle of Wight; Michael Coltman, Burton on Trent; and Graham Blackburn, Cambridgeshire. Congratulations! BRITISH LIST ADDITION THE EGYPTIAN VULTURE (Neophron percnopterus) has been added to Category A of the British list by the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee. While this species is usually found in parts of southern Europe, Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran and India, a wild vagrant was first spotted in Britain in 2021. The adult bird was then seen in both Cornwall and Ireland…

CONSERVATION THE THAMES ESTUARY is set to get a huge restoration thanks to a multimillion-pound investment. The project, “Transforming the Thames” led by the conservation charity ZSL (Zoological Society of London), will bring together conservationists, local communities, government bodies and landowners – including the RSPB, Essex and Kent Wildlife Trusts, The Environment Agency and Essex and Kent County Councils – to restore coastal habitats and ecosystems, benefitting birds and wildlife. Worth almost £4 million, the grant was awarded by the Endangered Landscape and Seascape Programme. It will enable the team to fund the first four years of their mission to restore key habitats across the estuary, tackle the biggest threats destroying existing habitats, and empower both individuals to businesses to scale up transformation across the region. “Decades of degradation and…

BOOKS PATRYCJA Kaminska, a committed zebra finch enthusiast from Poland, came to the fore in the international zebra finch scene two years ago when she compiled and published Zebra Finches: Mutations, Combinations of Mutations and Inheritance of Mutations. This was the first up-to-date work on zebra finch mutations for a long time. It has proved to be an invaluable guide to the newer mutations such as orange-breasted and charcoals and their combinations, including excellent photos, drawings and genetic charts. (See review in C&AB, November 14 2023.) Patrycja did not rest on her laurels and has spent considerable time researching and compiling to follow up with the impressive Zebra Finches: Breeding Guide. This is a genuinely unique book that both new and established fanciers will appreciate in their collection. It is…