From The Editor's Desk

Abstract

The Watchbird magazine is continuing to make changes in an effort to satisfy the needs of the avicultural community. This change is not in the form of content as we must always strive to give a wide range of avicultural information to our readers. The complexity and variety of avicultural subjects makes it difficult to give complete information (for both the beginner and experienced aviculturist) on all of these groups. Beginning with the Oct/Nov 1993 (Back to Basics) issue of Watchbird, we have begun to place more emphasis on the more common avicultural subjects such as budgies, cockatiels, lovebirds, ringnecks, Australian parakeets, common dove, pigeon and finch species, etc. The specialty issues which occur every other issue are again an effort to give details on certain subjects and species. Although parrot-type birds dominate the avicultural world, we must also satisfy the other avicultural interests.

Remember, the next specialty issue (May/June '94) is on conures, Brotogeris and Forpus (parrotlets). There are many aviculturists working with these species and we invite your input in the form of articles on your specific interest in these groups of parrots.

To further enhance the information published in the Watchbird magazine, we will be having regular columns on certain avicultural subjects by experts in their field.

Following the example of The Natural Choice by Eb Cravens, we will have the following columns. Rick Jordan will be writing on information on pediatrics of avian species. This topic will cover the important area of babies, handfeeding, nursery and the how-to's.

Linda S. Rubin will cover the subject of cockatiels and show topics. Linda has vast experience breeding cocka-tiels and their mutations and is a certified panel judge of the National Cockatiel Society (N,CS) and the Society of Parrot Breeders and Exhibitors (SPBE). She is also an excellent author of many articles and books.

Josef Lindholm, III will be doing a column called "Focus on Finches" in which he will begin with the weaver group and then the other groups of finches. This will be an excellent source of information for a group of birds that need so much attention now that commercial imports have stopped.

We will also begin a series of questions on avicultural techniques that readers can respond to and this way we can share and exchange our ideas. Subjects like "Can African Grays be colony bred?" We will have an expert give their comments and we then invite readers' responses.

We welcome these groups of contributing editors to the Watchbird magazine and we invite your comments on these and other ideas you feel are important.

Again, the Watchbird magazine will continue to publish articles on zoological avian subjects, larger parrots, conservation and many of the high class articles for which this magazine is noted.

Watchbird magazine is a publication of The American Federation of A vi culture (AF A) and we will continue AFA News & Views, but we will also show what AFA is doing in the legislative, research and conservation departments. This new addition will show "AFA in Action....





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