WHY DO THEY do it? I’m not talking about parrots screaming (see our cover story on page 14 of the March 20 issue), but about birdkeeping organisations mucking their members about. In the February 13 issue, Italian canary man Antonio…
WAS IT REALLY Dorothy L. Sayers who coined the famous advertising slogan “Guinness is good for you”? David Alderton (see page 12, March 13, writing mainly about toucans) is such a fount of information. I once read her crime novel…
REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR JARROD cotter must, I feel, enjoy compiling his monthly “Feather by Feather” article for Cage & Aviary Birds. It is quite a challenge to depict those intricate individual feathers on the page to show clearly how they constitute…
FULL MARKS TO Andy Early for asking the key question: “Are you going to tell us how you did it?” The interviewee (see page 12) is Dutch canary breeder Piet Renders, and “it” refers to the original choice of pairing…
THIS WEEK WE’VE prominently featured an article from the RSPB about the swift – just about the most non-cage-bird you can imagine. Why? Because I reckon fanciers will appreciate these charismatic birds and are in a special position to help…
One of the best things about birdkeeping is the friendships it forges. Friendship is priceless. For many, it’s just as important as the practice of birdkeeping. And some of the most special birdkeeping friendships come about between fanciers who live…
WHO IS YOUR favourite bird artist? I’m never sure about this one. I tend to feel that, since photographic accuracy has become the norm in painting, a degree of artistry has been lost. The pictorial birds I like most are…
AS HE FINISHED his crucial presentation about the London fancy canary to COM officials at the recent World Show, Huw Evans (as he tells us on page 2) was encouraged when his audience broke into applause. That’s always a good…
AN OVERVIEW OF all the colours in a breed, or all the species in a family, is always interesting (when it’s well written). This week it’s the pelican family that gets the treatment, in Bill Naylor’s article on page 14.…
ROSEMARY LOW’S LETTER (January 9 issue) adds to the developing debate in these pages about the keeping of foreign birds. Further contributions will appear in the forthcoming weeks. From my position “on the sidelines”, two things seem clear: first, that…