November 2011

20 November

It's been a while since my last update and lots has happened in the time. I've struggled to get onto the site from through my normal channel but for regulars I have show reports and pictures from North West Fife, North Wales Fife and North of England Fife shows, as well as from Midland that I'll endeavour to publish during the next week.

October saw my first judging engagement of the season and my first show. I was delighted to be invited to judge the West of Scotland Fife Fancy Canary club specialist show, which attracted an entry of over 950 fifes with fanciers coming from far and wide. The following week I bagged my first two champion specials of the show season at the North West Fife specialist show where just short of 800 birds were benched. A self green yellow hen i bred won her class, was awarded second best champion green and then went on to take 7th best champion in show, not a bad return on her first outing, a variegated yellow hen also won her class and i had a couple of seconds too, with the majority of the team carding.

In the early weeks of november i judged the Fife section of the Merseyside Border club, awarding best in show to Paul Glovers novice variegated yellow hen, a lovely sweet bird. After judging a drove down to North Wales Fife, where i had entered a team of 17, have to say, despite a couple of seconds and a number of other birds in the cards i was disapointed with my own results.

Any disapointed i may have felt was wiped out following yesterdays show at the North of England, with 1,490 birds entered its arguably the biggest Fife show anywhere in the world. I entered a team of 20 but benched 18. The highlight for me was undoubtedly the performance of my self green buff hen who won her class of 39 and went on to win Best Champion Green in show, my first champion colour special at the North of England and one of the bigger ones at that. Equally pleasing was the performance of my self green yellow hen who was 2nd in a class of 59 and my heavily variegated buff cock who was also second in a class of 37. My two ticked yellow hens (sisters) were 6 & 7 in a class of 30 and my two ticked buff cocks were also 6 & 7 in a class of 27, with a self blue cock 4th in a class of 25, and two other sisters both 7th, one in the variegated yellow hen class (45 entries) and one in the heavily variegated yellow hen class (41 entries) to complete the teams perfromance. All in all a great day out!

Preparations for what will be my final show of the season next week, the Midland, are now well underway with the team being sprayed this morning.