2009 ANNUAL SHOW

First and foremost, I extend many thanks to David Renshaw and the members of the Mornington Peninsula Avicultural Society, for donating the use of the space at their Annual Sale for us to stage our show and display.

I think it was a benefit to both our organizations as some of the Victorian Zebra Finch members came along where otherwise, they may not have. Should the arrangement continue, I am confident that we, as a club, will increase the attendance to the sale in years to come.

All the birds on the bench (83 entries) made a great display and attracted a lot of attention. There was a good variety of classes filled and several quality birds on display.

Whilst the overall quality did not reach National Standard in many instances, there were several birds benched that could hold their own at National level. Some of the individuals and varieties of lesser type, still competed at an higher level on merit of points for colour and pattern. Such birds that come to mind were the two Red males and a Red hen, considering that the Red hen was also very good type for her variety. Another bird that was very good colour was a Diluteblue Blackbodied hen. She was entered in the Blackface class by mistake, but I let it go on this occasion because a Blackbodied is really a modified Blackface. I believe this bird was bred by Charlie Mizzi and the Reds by John Moverley and Jade Seabrook. Good work, these birds should be valuable in the breeding pen. Mark Worboy's Aluminas have showed much progress and would certainly hold their own in their class at National level.

Congratulations to all the group winners and Jade Seabrook for breeding the Champion Bird and Maurie Breward for breeding the Reserve Champion, which also took out Best Opposite Sex to the Champion.

Thanks to all those who donated their time to prepare the show, transporting staging, stewarding and to Colin Read for painting the planks.

On the negative side, I expected to see some better quality in the Fawn Classes, the Marked White Classes and the Creamback Classes, mainly because of the quality of stock we received from Interstate.

Several of the birds were out of feather. To compete at a National level, exhibits must be bought inside and housed individually 3-4 weeks before the show, regularly sprayed with warm water and acclimatised to a smaller cage. These are just some of the tricks that experienced exhibitors know about. Also, it was disappointing to see some cages very poorly presented, especially for our first Annual Show. Some of the cages were in dire need of a wash and/or a new coat of paint. A few of the birds lost points because of the way they were presented. Why spend all the money and effort to breed a good bird, and then exhibit it in a dirty or dilapidated cage.

Thanks to the club for the opportunity to Judge the First Annual Show.

Yours faithfully,
Mike Ferguson.