Abstract
The bird world is peopled with snakes. I mean slimy. slithering. sneaking snakes that are poisonous to bird and man alike. These snakes will stand upright before you. fix you with a beady eye. and while swaying to and fro. try to hypnotize you into believing they are honest and sincere aviculturists and bird dealers.
One such snake was spotted in action here in Southern California during the latest Newcastle "s disease outbreak. He is a bird dealer who has some aviaries and a store. Unfortunately. he acquired some birds from an infested source. Still more unfortunately. while the government task force was waiting for the test results on his birds, he went out and bought every cheap bird he could lay hands on. When the tests results said Newcastle. the government bought. at an inflated price. all of his birds and destroyed them-including the innocent birds recently purchased for that very purpose.
The profits were so good that the snake's neighbor and avicultural buddy called around trying to find a V. V.N.D. infected bird so he too could have his aviaries depopulated at a profit.
Gentle reader. I don't know about you, but my instincts tell me to grab the snake behind its head and to depopulate it vigorously against a rock.
Is nothing pure anymore? ls nothing sacred? Is mammon the only god left? Don't misunderstand me, I am all in favor of an honest profit in bird dealings. but the bird world seems to have too many people in it nowadays who are too willing to sacrifice a green bird for a greenback. Too many people look into a cage to see a parrot and see only a profit: they look to see finches and see finances.
Where are the sensitive, gentle souls who keep birds because birds are the living gems of the world, because birds bring delight to the eye, music to the ear, and peace to the soul? Where is the man who holds his birds so dear that he would not sell them at any price?
In our culture, birds no longer seem to be things of beauty that one can share with others as one shares the beauty of a flower garden. Indeed, birds have become something akin to legal tender. This deplorable fact hit me rather hard when I learned of the aforementioned snake who was willing, nay, anxious. to have his birds killed for the proper price.
Well. so much for snakes. Now I should
Dear Friends.
I enjoyed the Watchbird article on the Red-eyed Copper Bar Zebra Finch. Now I have a quesion about the eye color. How red is red? As you know, the wild Zebras all have red eyes. The domesticated Zebras have "black" eyes (actually very dark red.) I have a red-eyed Zebra male. I prefer to call it pink-eyed.
But back to my question. If a black-eyed copper hen were sitting on a perch beside a red-eyed copper hen in the flight in the subdued light of a bird house, could you distinguish eye color between the two at, say, 15 feet distance?
If so, I would be inclinded to call the one bird a pink-eyed Zebra, not that it makes a lot of difference.
The male I have is a '78 fawn pied. He has fathered about 25 youngsters to date, the first 5 with a normal grey hen, the rest with a "Florida Fancy" hen. The first clutch fledged in January I 979 and have not yet been bred.
Observations to date:
I. The "pink-eye" could be a sport rather than a mutation.
2. If it is a mutation, it is not sex-linkedhis daughters do not have pink eyes.
3. It is possible the male is split for blue.
You wouldn't believe the colors of the youngsters from the "Florida Fancy," about one third are white (understandably), one is a real, honest to God Fawn, the remainder, males, and females, are more "blue" than anything else.
Name withheld by request.
This letter came to me but its contents were addressed primarily to Mr. Joe Lannom. We invite a response from any of you Finch breeders who have pertinent information or ideas regarding the Zebra Finch
orange cheek patches, but was not as light in color as the ones I have now. I mated him to a silver hen. Each nest I eliminated the darker or more silver birds, keeping the lighter ones, and mating a light hen back to the father. I now have a strain that produces almost 100% light cream birds. They are exactly like the picture you show in your magazine and are beautiful. I have sold these birds in the St. Louis area for over two years.
My husband and I really enjoy The Watchbird, it is very informative and the color photographs are outstanding.
Sincerely yours, Mrs. Dorothy Knapp St. Louis,Mo.