ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 120, © 2005
No reprints without permission

Our canary song CD offers great quality for one of the lowest prices you can find on the market - and unlike some vendors of canary song CDs, we don't lie about what kind of recordings you'll get, or its intended use. Our CD of Robirda's canaries singing has no distracting background music, and includes 12 16-bit true-stereo tracks, each averaging almost 5 minutes long, for a total of 58 minutes and 48 seconds of canary songs.

Judge for yourself, and listen to a 10 second mp3 sample. Listen carefully, and you will be able to hear the different positions of each bird! Note too that the CD quality is much better than this sample mp3.

A recent customer told us, "Received the CD! Man can they sing! Hope our American Singer will sound half as good! Thank you."

Another says, "The CD arrived and it's just great! Hansie loves it and has been warbling away for the past 2 days."

Learn more at here!

Bird & Cage is having their BIG Summer Blow-Out Sale - prices have been slashed, so drop by for big savings on many wrought iron cages!

The folks at Bird & Cage have made it their goal to provide birdkeepers with a wide selection of good quality cages and cage accessories for great prices and top-quality customer service. Check out some of their cages that Robirda recommends!

It's almost time for the annual moult, and that means this is a great time to be sure you have the accessories you need on hand. See some cage accessories Robirda recommends.

A recent customer says, "I received the cages and they are beautiful... they look just like the picture on your web site. I was pleased to see them shipped so promptly, I didn't have any trouble getting used to having two matching beautiful black cages in our family room, thank you so much..."

For a full selection of cages and cage accessories, visit BirdandCage.com.

Tips 'N Tricks
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Our tip this issue comes from Flock reader Elizabeth, who writes,

"I haven't hand-fed most of my birds and so my hand looks like a predator to them when I try to pick them up. So I just drape a soft, thin white washcloth over my hand and they just kind of look at it and don't flee at all. Makes it much easier to capture them."

Bird Site Review
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Colourbred Canaries 101 Genetics Discussion List

If you want to learn about canary colours and genetics, this is the list to join. Once you're a member, you have log-in rights to the website, and can access an awesome archive of informative posts, articles by widely respected authors, and photos by some great breeders from all over the world. If you want to learn real canary facts, this is a great place to start!

Links
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  - Ask Robirda
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For You & Your Birds, With Love
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We rely on you to help keep this publication and its associated websites alive. If you find help you need in this ezine or on our websites, please consider joining our sponsors.

Read testimonials or find more details on sponsorships. If you're looking for something different, check our home page for links to all our great products and services!

Our next issue is due May 22nd. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, we look forward to seeing you all then! 

Robirda
Kelowna, BC
May 8, 2005

Welcome to Robirda's Companion Birds eZine

For breeder or pet bird owners who care.

Hello! Welcome to Flock Talk's 120th issue. Subscribe and unsubscribe information for the email version of this ezine is at the bottom of this webpage.

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Website News

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This issue and Mother's Day coincide this year, and we feel it is only right to offer a tribute to all the 'Moms' out there who care for and nurture others; whether it is birds, people, or both, there is a lot is this world that we would not have around to be grateful for, without all the moms who made it happen!

Our feature story this issue is by one such 'Mom', who helps to run one of the better Canary Discussion Lists online; we've reviewed the site for you in this issue, and we've featured the first half of one of her detailed articles on feather type and composition. If you want to learn details about colour canaries, Arlene's articles are a great place to start! Read on for more.

Egg Candling Fact

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Our 'fact' this issue was inspired by Flock reader Elizabeth, who writes,"I used a powerful reading-in-bed lamp to candle some eggs and none of those eggs hatched. You might want to warn your readers."

Thanks for the warning about candling with too-strong lights, Elizabeth! It is indeed possible to damage a chick in the egg by candling with too strong a light, especially if you candle any later than around 9 or 10 days of incubation (depending on how well the hen is incubating)

That's actually why I recommend candling once only, after 7 or 8 days of incubation, and not again. I find I get good results with a little key-chain penlight - I just take the whole nest away into a darkish room, then put the tip of the penlight into the nest beside each egg so that the light shines through each eggshell in turn - that way I don't have to handle the eggs at all, nor does the penlight ever touch them.

Feature Article

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What colour a canary appears to be can vary widely, depending on the kind of feathers it has. In this article, one of the great canary educators on our planet attempts to clarify this so-often-misunderstood fact that is so important to understand when learning canary colours, and even more important to breeding...

by Arlene Rosenthal
Copyright © Oct 2004

Although there are intermediate forms, most canaries' feathers can be sorted into one of three different categories:

1. INTENSIVE (Non-Frosted or Hard) FEATHER

In the Type and Song sections of the fancy this feather type is usually called 'yellow'. An intensive-feathered bird should be as completely free from any hint of frosting as possible. As in those breeds, with the intensive feather the lipochrome color extends to the very edges of each individual feather, visually creating a strong color tonality.

Due to this strong color tonality, intensive-feathered birds generally seem to be tighter-feathered and thus smaller-bodied than frosted-feather birds. Any presence of small areas of depigmentation (flecks, spotting or frosting) in an intensive is penalized on the showbench.

Since hens are much more prone to this fault than cocks, usually having at least a slight amount of frosting apparent on the hind neck and/or mantle feathers, the sexes are routinely judged separately.

Whether the feather is actually 'hard' or 'soft' really depends on several things, including which melanin pigments it contains. An intensive Brown Series (cinnamon) feather, for example, is invariably softer and finer in texture than an intensive Black Series feather. There are also great differences in the feathers on various parts of the body; head, throat, breast, back, undertail coverts, etc.

In general, it may be said that 'soft' (usually meaning frosted) feathers are more oval in shape, fairly broad and fully rounded at the tip, and more downy on the underflue, while 'hard' (usually meaning intensive) feathers are longer and a little narrower towards the tip, ending in a slightly rounded point, and are longer but less downy on the underflue.

In actuality, however, a 'hard' feather may feel soft to the touch and be frosted while an intensive feather may feel hard yet actually be 'soft'.

2. NON-INTENSIVE (Frosted or Soft) FEATHER

In the Type and Song sections of the fancy this feather type is usually referred to as 'buff'. It's the normal feather type of the Wild Canary and it's relatively longer, broader, softer, more oval in shape, and thicker than the intensive feather with a fluffier underflue.

Again as in the Type and Song breeds, the non-intensive or frosted feather is the opposite of the intensive: the lipochrome doesn't extend all the way to the edges of the feathers, leaving instead a clear color-free margin which visually dilutes the density of the lipochrome color and imparts an overall frosted or grizzled appearance.

This frosting must be clear and distinct, neither too coarse, too heavy or too fine. The degree of frosting should never be so great as to mask the ground color or more than slightly disrupt the pattern of markings. It should cover only the small area on the very edge of each feather and be uniformly distributed throughout the plumage without any tendency to concentrate in certain areas, such as it commonly does on the hind neck, back and shoulders of many birds.

Conversely, there shouldn't be any areas totally devoid of frosting, a common enough fault on the feathers of the breast and underparts.

It is also possible for a bird to be intensively colored yet still have feathers which are the typical size and shape of frosted feathers with one exception: the color extends to the very end of the web so there's no frosting to be seen. This type of feathering is known as CHECKED FROST - that is, the frost has been 'checked' in that it doesn't show.

3. MOSAIC or DIMORPHIC FEATHER

Dimorphism is a very common character seen in a great many species of birds and other animals, even people. All the term means is that there are differences in size, color, pattern or ornamention between male and female that make the genders visually distinguishable. Sometimes it's very obvious (i.e., the male lion has a mane, the lioness does not), sometimes it's so subtle that only the animals themselves are absolutely sure.

The dimorphic color characters of all canary breeds - even those whose bloodlines have never seen a drop of Red Siskin blood - tend to the subtle, but can oftentimes become fairly obvious when one knows what to look for. The Mosaic or Dimorphic feather of the Colorbred expounds on the theme, making the color differences between the genders much more obvious.

With the exception of the whites (which may have the feather type but not the color to exhibit dimorphism), all the clear ground color and melanin color varieties and their ivory-factored versions may also be bred in this mosaic or dimorphic form, a factor related to the gender of the bird in which the feather produces different color pattern phenotypes for males and females.

This patterning is so distinctive that the Australian fancy has seen fit to classify clear lipochrome mosaics among the Marked Type breeds and to consider the red-factor melanin mosaics as being combination mutations.

The mosaic feather may be likened to a form of extreme frosted feather - but it's even softer, longer, thicker and broader, the web more fan-shaped than the typical frosted with the lipochrome pigment extending to the very tip of each feather only at a few well-defined areas.

Everywhere else on the body save for the flank and vent areas where the feathers are pure white throughout, the lipochrome color has been 'pushed' into a small round or oval area at the center of each feather and can't be seen due to the very extended frosted feather margins and the way in which the feathers normally overlap each other, thereby exposing only these margins.

The mosaic pattern thus displays several strongly colored plumage points or zones with the remainder of the feathering appearing as white and clear as possible although, as a rule, the mosaics are only really white in the lipochrome forms.

Intensive mosaic feather displays another CHECKED FROST feather variation sometimes called EXTENDED MOSAIC, producing yet a different color phenotype which, while interesting and distinctive, isn't usually considered a proper exhibition form because the color points are barely discernable as such - although the Australian fancy, at least, sometimes provides classes for them.

In a check frost mosaic the vent area feathers remain white while the lipochrome color spreads out to cover most of all the other body feathers (save on the underflue), these having only a narrow frosted edging that dips down to the central feather shaft, resulting in birds which are primarily red or yellow and all over patterned with a fine design of little white 'M's or 'W's. The frosted edging is generally lighter and much finer in the color point areas, this often being the only thing that can distinguish them.

(See our next issue of Flock Talk for the second half of Arlene's thorough and detailed explaination of feather type.)

by Arlene Rosenthal
Copyright © Oct 2004

Ask Robirda

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A recent consultee says, "Thanks Robirda, for the informative and friendly reply to my consult.

"I had a canary as a child and it moulted for a year until it died. Now, 40 years later and with information from your site, I shudder at our ignorance about canaries and their needs. When Dad and I purchased Herbie for Mom we expected a canary that would keep her company with its song. We thought we had a live wind up canary - clean it, feed it, listen to a song.

"Then every thing changed, and I started looking at Herbie differently. Each day brought new insights. Slowly, I learned the difference in her cries and trills. Finally, I became smitten and searched the web for info on canaries and their behavior. Thankfully, I found your site.

"Not only did I learn how varied and special the species was, not only did I discover techniques for expanding my relations with Herbie, not only did I find a wonderful community of canary lovers, more importantly, I was given the extensive knowledge in nutrition and environment that would keep Herbie in the good health and condition that any pet deserves. Thank goodness for your work and for our bird who never gave up trying to speak and interact with silly slow humans."

Robirda's customers find her answers to be detailed, reliable, caring and supportive. When you need help with housing, feeding, care or behavioral questions, Robirda can help you learn to understand your birds better!

Learn more at robirda.com/ask.html

Canary Book

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Recently Robirda's book Brats in Feathers was reviewed by Mr. G.B.R. Walker, one of the most respected canary authors and judges on the planet. His comments make it clear why this book has been getting such a great response from its readers.

Mr Walker said, "I have just finished Brats in Feathers. My overall impression is that it is an excellent introduction to a first time canary owner, and a useful reminder to those that have owned a pet for a time...The chapter on training was particularly well received. I have never seen anything like this in written form before, and frankly had never even considered it.

"Whilst we and 50 other breeders in the same room will all give different opinions on various aspects of breeding canaries, the basics always remain the same, and you have covered them well. A new breeder following your guidelines should be successful, and at the end of the day that is all that matters. I loved the photos from the cam, and was most impressed by Jim's chapter."

Brats in Feathers is available as a book, or as two (unprintable) ebooks. You can find more details, including a link to download sample chapters, at www.robirda.com/books.html.