Fascinating hobbies

It's good to have a hobby, as we all know. It keeps you busy, opens up new areas of knowledge, it can broaden your horizons and introduce you to a whole new circle of friends. However, there are some hobbies that, well, don't quite seem to meet all those criteria. On initial inspection, one of those is featured on our news pages this week. Lawrence Cobbold's obsession with collecting bird ornaments could be said to have got out of hand. His house is stuffed full with more than 20,000 ornaments, so much so he can't get in the kitchen to cook food. In this case, you'd have to say, this is one pursuit that doesn't meet the criteria most of us look for in a hobby.

On the other hand, maybe we're wrong. Mr Cobbold's hobby may seem a tad eccentric, but it gets him out and about buying stuff, which in a way broadens his horizons. And now he's been in most of the UK's newspapers, he's probably making a whole new set of friends. Certainly he's now got tons of people looking to visit and take photographs. Which just goes show, in this media age, one minute you can be pottering around in your own back garden and the next you're front-page news. So watch out!

Inspiring work of ProAves

There's a strong international slant to our news coverage this week with stories from Colombia, Australia, Ukraine and Iraq. As it has become easier to access information about what's happening with birds around the world, and as you, our readers, have began to travel more, so the magazine has spread its wings. The internet nourishes our appreciation of our birds' countries of origin and keeps us clued up on what is happening to species far and wide.

The inspiring work of organisations such as Fundación ProAves in Colombia, which is trying to save species like the Fuertes' parrot, comes to life via its website and the many stories we publish about it. Colombia has been a pretty dangerous place to hang out for the last 30 years or so. But with the advent of more stable times, Colombians have been able to turn their attentions more fully to their environment and their birdlife. This is why the moves made in war-torn Iraq by our own Government – financing a major conservation effort in the mountains in north of the country – is hugely welcome, because it indicates that maybe, just maybe, Iraqis can now start to think about things other than survival.

Of course, £300,000 to count white-throated robins is hardly going to transform the lives of people embroiled in sectarian strife. But the sooner the elements of a normal existence can seep back into the consciousness of that troubled land the better. So we welcome the work of the Darwin Initiative (which you can read about on page 4) and hope that one day Iraqi ornithologists and bird-enthusiasts will once again play their full part in the ever-closer bird

Welcomed views

Technology, we're always told, is neither good nor bad in itself. What matters is how you use it. And, although living birds are for many people a relief from the high-tech environment of our time, the power of technology is constantly intruding. Here are some examples:

1. Spix's macaw, extinct in the wild, relies totally on aviculture for its survival. Now its chances may have been boosted (see page 2) by a new method of artificial insemination. If successful, this should help with the creation of a global sperm bank for rare parrots and other species. A good thing, as I hope you would agree.

2. Two smart poultry-keepers find they can't easily get the products they want. So they start their own online business. Garden Feathers (see page 18) thrives and expands into the cage bird market. But then, because they want more personal contact with their customers, they also open an actual, physical shop! It's an unusual "clicks to bricks" story – a pleasure to read.

3. Green, clean, wind-turbine electricity production is a high-tech business and has provoked a right old ding-dong between its supporters, the nuclear power people and others. Now, the RSPB (always pro-turbine) says it's going to build one itself, at its national HQ (see page 3). Where do you stand on wind technology? Rigorous case-by-case assessment seems the only sensible way forward to me.

4. Everyone's favourite penguin, the Emperor, is more numerous than we thought in its Antarctic homeland: clever satellites have spotted some previously unsuspected colonies (page 3). Hooray – and yet don't you find the world to be a smaller, less mysterious place when your computer lets you hover almost anywhere, or even descend to street level via the likes of Google?

Your views, as ever, are welcome. Have a great week with your birds!

Endless challenge

Popular, widespread cage birds provide us with endless challenge, fascination and companionship. That's why they're popular! Nonetheless, rarity is always a potent attraction, and I'm sure that most of us, at some time or other, have hankered after the chance to keep some little-known exotic – maybe even a threatened species.

Well, Rob Monk hasn't merely hankered, he's gone out there and done it. Worcestershire fancier Rob has kept birds for some 40 years, but recently he has taken his hobby onto a new plane by specialising in global rarities.

He began with the glorious chestnut-backed thrush and has now bred almost 20 to independence. Since then he's moved into such goodies as bleeding-heart doves (all rare species in the wild), Rickett's hill-partridges from China and yellow-faced parrotlets from Peru. (See story, page 20.)

Apart from relishing the breeding challenge, Rob hopes to link up with other breeders and also zoos, to build up captive stocks of rare species that could be released into the wild if the non-captive populations ever needed boosting.