November 2012

9 November

Been a hectic couple of weeks outside of the birdroom, but getting back into bird mode this weekend with a bang!. Have the honour of judging the North Wales Fife Fancy Canary Club show on sunday, and have entered a small team in a local show to give them a run before the bigger specialist shows at the end of the month.

Delighted to see a familiar name taking best champion at Southern England (well done Paul!) and even more pleased to hear that one of the birds parents came from me!. North of England in a week, labels arrived on Wednesday, have my Midland entries still to do and a trip judging one of Northern Irelands biggest Fife shows to fit in inbetween!.

With so many judging engagements this year and running our show with Graham I feel like i haven't really had a show season yet, must make a mental note for next year!! Still looking forward to the next few weekends when i can be a punter again!

12 November

What a weekend!, had the pleasure in judging North Wales Fife Fancy Canary club show yesterday with Charlie Adams and Roy Brown, just under 700 Fifes entered with some fantastic birds on show. The top awards went to Gerald Spencer and Tom Campbell, looking through the results sheet last night both Exhibitors had a great show in the champion and novice classes respectively, the best in show, a lovely self cinnamon was an absolute belting bird, but in truth either of his colour winners could have taken the top award, I understand that Geralds best flighted bird, a lovely self blue hen, was full sister to the best in show.

Really enjoyed the day and as always Dave Shelbourne, Huw Parry, Gareth Jones and the lads down there had everything sorted (the cake from the ladies in the kitchen is worth the trip alone!!!). Heading back i'd entered 10 birds to the Fife section of Merseyside Borders to give them a run out prior to Midland in a couple of weeks, not a huge show, maybe a dozen or so exhibitors, arrived from judging just in time to pick up my birds and see they'd be awarded 3rd, 5th and 7th best champion Fifes in show and best variegated and best cinnamon variegated, very pleased with that.

Off to North of England this weekend, only 26 cages to prepare!, got some video of the main winners at North Wales which i'll load up shortly......

19 November

I'll be the first to admit to being slightly nervous as i approached the show hall at goole yesterday for the North of England, with an entry of almost 1,350 unflighted Fifes, and having won best green their last year and knowing that the vast majority of the leading studs would be in competition i'd prepared myself that birds in the tickets was a good result after all the self green yellow hen champion class had 61 entries!) to find that i'd won three classes. had second in three and 3 in two, with another three in the cards was, i thought a fantastic performance by the show team - that feeling was eclipsed when i looked at the top table of main winners and saw two of my birds on it!.

Taking the award for best champion variegated with a variegated yellow hen (1st in a class of 40), followed up by 2nd in the variegated buff hen class (her sister) 2 in a class of 38 and 3rd with a variegated buff cock (in a class of 31). My foul Green buff cock won its class and went on to take the champion colour special, my clear buff hen was 2nd in a class of 42, and completing the top results was my Self green buff cock which was first in a class of 19 and my heavily variegated buff cock which was 3rd in a class of 26.

All in all a great day, having not won the champion variegated special before this season, i've won it on both occassions at the two specialist shows i've been at with different birds (in fact i won it at Merseyside border too, sandwiched between the two shows, so so far i've won it with a buff cock, a yellow cock and a yellow hen, wonder what will happen at the Midland????)

Below a couple of photos from the north of england (reproduced with thanks to James Weaire) on the left me receiving my two special awards from Terry Kelly (we look like an advert for wallace and gromit!) and on the right Gerald Spencers best in show, heavily variegated yellow cock.

27 November

Well what will be the final show season weekend for me until the new year has ended with a bang! Had a really enjoyable trip to Northern Ireland for a judging engagement with Gerald at the Northern Ireland Fife fancy Canary club show, great to see so many of the guys again having judged Mid Ulster earlier in the year and to judge some fantastic quality clear and light birds. Sam Barkely took the top honours with a cracking clear yellow cock, one of 5 colour specials Sam took on the day with an outstanding team of birds, some of the clear birds were as good if not better than some i've judged in the UK. Once again Richard Wilson played a blinder in the airport run and finding the only bar with no people in it on a Friday night but the Guinness was good and the company better, all in all one of the best trips i've had judging the birds (have some video to load up - but in the meantime a cracking dark i enjoyed on the Friday!)

A quick return trip to Liverpool and thanks to Graham a night off benching birds before taking a trip down to the Midland show on the Sunday, although i'd entered a team of 16 i only benched 12 birds. It would be an understatement to say how pleased i was with the performance of the team, three class wins including the Variegated yellow hen class, variegated buff cock class and heavily variegated buff cock class and second in the clear buff hen class (all of which had almost 40 champion birds from all over the UK in). To top the day off I won the best champion Variegated special for the third specialist show on the spin - I hadn't won it before this year now I've won it at my own specialist show and the two biggest Fife shows in the UK (North of England 1,335 birds, Midland 1500 plus). So really delighted overall, but what i enjoy most about the Midland is meeting up with people from all over the UK it's great to see the likes of Terry, Joanne and Jake Coburn (even if Jake is growing taller than me and has considerably more hair!) and the Midlands and Scots crew, it's strange that it will be another 12 months until we meet again, but the conversation will pick up exactly where it left off and once again we'll have a laugh over a pint with this great hobby........