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ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 150, © 2006
No reprints without permission
Sponsor's Space
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The folks at Bird & Cage provide bird keepers with a wide selection of great quality birdcages and accessories for very good prices, along with some of the best customer service you will find anywhere. Their customers all agree, they do a great job!
They've provided a lovely wrought iron canary flight cage as part of the Grand Prize in our Photo Contest, you can see it here.
You can save 20% in the Sidewalk Sale of overstocked cages. On the rest of the site you will find breeding cages, cage accessories, stands, and some of the best flight cages anywhere. There's even free shipping if you live in the continental US!
A recent customer says,"I have to tell you how impressed I am with the flight-breeding cages I got from you; along with the great price, I found them very easy to put together, and they are super-easy to move, clean and maintain. Not to mention that the birds are thrilled at having all that space! I will be recommending your service to all the ‘birdpeople’ I know."
For a full selection of cages and cage accessories, visit BirdandCage.com.
Help Needed
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Do you know of a great bird site which deserves a review? Maybe you have a favourite tip or trick that you like to use, or know of a product that has made your bird's life better or easier to manage in some way? Why not share them with other readers? Send us tales of how you cope, or how your birds confuse and puzzle, interest and amuse you, and we will share them with the rest of our readers in a future issue. Just send an email here.
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- Home
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- Basic Care
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- Health
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- Books & eBooks
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"I love your website, your information has made me a very well-informed canary friend/owner. Thank you."
"I cannot thank you enough for your kind and considerate responses to all of our questions. Your website has really been a wonderful find for us! And we absolutely love your canary CD!"
"Just a short note to tell you how great your ezine is... As a long time bird lover I thank you for your wonderful mag. Keep up the great work!"
"Hi Robirda! Thanks for your thoughts. My little one is singing as loudly as ever. He looks much better today. Your advice was most welcome; I'm particularly grateful about the recipes! I sent you the same amount the vet charged me; you have done no less than he did. You are a real blessing to all of us canary lovers the world over."
"Thank you so much for the book on canaries. That is a really nice book. I needed one, because I bought my Mom two canaries, a male and a female, we don't know anything about them. I'm so glad to have this book, I couldn't believe how much was in there. Thank you so much!"
Welcome to Robirda's Companion Bird eZine
For breeder or pet bird owners who care.
Website News
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Well, we've made it to our 150th issue, something we never dreamed we'd see when we first started this little 'zine in the fall of 2000! It's been a busy 6 years, and thanks to our readers and contributors, we've been able to continue to present you with quality articles and fine features in each new issue of Flock Talk. Without your support and input, we wouldn't be here; THANK YOU for everything, from everyone who's helped; you know who you are! You're appreciated more than words can ever say.
Meanwhile, we've finished collecting votes for our contest, and you'll find the results listed below the feature article. Voting was active, but some photos received quite a number of duplicate votes, which unfortunately lowered their final ranking. Others tried to vote for more than one photo, but weren't accepting emails from us, rendering their votes unusable. But such minor affairs didn't stop the votes from pouring in! As more than one person commented, there was so many great photos, it was tough to choose; really, they should all be winners! We have to agree.
Meanwhile, we've been slaving away on our video DVD, slogging our way through computer crashes, hard drive failures, and dying power supplies; yes, it was one of those weeks - 2 of them, in fact! But we've surmounted all such problems, and are very close to being able tostart mailing out orders. Our video will be close to an hour long, and we hope you will agree that it's packed with useful tips and information on handling canaries. This means that our special pre-order pricing won't last long, so if you want to collect the savings, you might want to place your order! www.robirda.com/canarydvd.html
Feature Article
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How many times have you heard somebody say, "I'm only one person, what can I do?" There seems to be a lot of people who believe that no matter how much a situation is disliked, there's no way to bring about any change with the minor input of ‘only one person’. But I've learned that just one person can often do exactly that, if he or she believes strongly enough in...
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © July 2006
I'm not just talking theory, here; I'm saying that I've actually seen it happen. One person can make a tremendous difference in a world of ways, if they believe enough in what they want to do, to be willing to try. In fact, very often that act in itself is the hardest of all; it's rather like the old often-quoted saying about the snowball effect; once it's gotten started, it doesn't usually take much effort to keep it going.
I've had direct experience of this myself, much of it due to an old internet friend who recently passed away. She encouraged me, bullied me (gently, and only when needed), joshed, jostled, nudged and cheered me, whenever she thought it necessary. She made sure her cyber-shoulder was always available whenever it might be needed, and often repeated that she KNEW I could do it.
I didn't believe her at first, but went along with her ideas for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it was easier to go along than to resist; I felt that resisting would have been similar to trying to stand up in the middle of swimming river rapids. For another, I expected circumstances to prove one or the other of us right, fairly soon.
As it turned out, I was wrong, and she was right. The person? One of the first people I met online, back in the mid-90's, Sharon Klueber; you may have seen her articles in the Flock Talk Archives. The situation? The creation of www.robirda.com.
When we first met, my website had no domain name, and was a rather tiny affair, a small personal site hosted for free at iVillage (as long as it didn't get too big or get much traffic). I'd started it out of boredom over a few weeks in the fall of 1995, when locked out of a job due to a strike.
I had several different printed Care Sheets that I included whenever I sold a canary, and I'd also hand out copies at fairs, bird marts, and club meetings. It seemed only natural to base my first experimental web pages on this ready-made content.
Sharon was one of my first visitors. She was keeping four male canaries together in what was considered by most pet stores to be a fairly spacious cage, but which was actually quite small for four feisty male canaries. There was only one food dish, and as always in such a situation, the canaries had established a firm pecking order, and one of them was beginning to show signs of suffering from it.
Sharon realized that something was wrong, but didn't know what to do about it, and couldn't find anything to help resolve her particular situation in any of the books she'd consulted looking for a solution. Indeed, most books informed her that canaries enjoyed company, and should never be caged alone!
Upon consulting an avian veterinarian, she had been informed that he had no hands-on experience in dealing with any of the smaller pet birds - it's rare for an avian veterinarian to have much experience in this area, in much of the world - but he had gone on to tell her, after a cursory exam, that in his opinion the birds were fine and that she was taking the best of care of them; nothing was wrong, and she was simply imagining that one of them was not doing as well as the rest.
Many people would have stopped there, but Sharon knew from her own observations how much that single canary's habits and actions had changed since she'd first gotten him, and she resolved firmly to keep looking for an answer. At her wit's end, she had been reduced to searching aimlessly when she happened upon my website.
She immediately sat down to write me a note about her quandary. I responded, and over the next few weeks, while thrashing out a workable resolution to her problems, we developed a firm friendship.
It proved to be too late to save the little guy who'd been lowest on the totem pole, but the rest of Sharon's canaries showed her daily how much they enjoyed their new situation. She was thrilled to be able to see so clearly how her canaries responded so positively to the changes she'd made.
She thought it a shame that the solution had been so simple, yet had taken her so long to find, and that even an avian vet had not been able to help her out. Yet without any formal training, I had been able to help her to find a workable solution. I pointed out that I was simply going on experience, much of it learned from older, wiser canary keepers.
Sharon promptly responded that she felt that it should be possible for people needing the help such information could offer, to find it within a reasonable amount of time, so as to be able to offer their treasured pets the best possible life.
I couldn't help but agree, recalling all too clearly how long it had taken me to find reliable, useful information on canary keeping, after I was given my first canary. But I was surprised to realize that I had been extremely lucky; a great many people had searched for far longer, with far less results.
I didn't feel that I had the right or the skill to take on such a task, but again, Sharon disagreed. I had, she pointed out, quite accidentally managed to collect the perfect concatenation of skills, in my varied work history, to be able to create such a resource on the World Wide Web.
To make a long story short, in many ways Sharon was responsible, when it comes right down to it, for this ezine and it's collection of associated websites, in the forms they exist nowadays. Sharon saw me through every step of the way, alternatively encouraging, nudging, instigating, chastening and heartening. She was the quickest to applaud each breakthrough, and the first to offer her help when problems would arise.
I'm going to miss her more than words could ever say, but I'll always be able to remember her, just by looking around my life. Thanks to her influence, I have other friends, met in a similar fashion, who also benefitted from the depths of Sharon's wisdom, and loved her just as deeply. Like me, they learned from her actions, not her words, that we could make a difference, if we were only willing to try.
Together, we celebrate her life every time we try to make the world a better place, as she showed us we could do. Thanks, my friend. Love and Light your way, too.
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © July 2006
Here's the results for our contest! If you see your photo listed here, please email us your address, so we can send you your prize packages. We just wish we could award everybody a prize; with so many great photos, we feel you should all be winners!
"Everyone always asks me why my birds are such beautiful singers and breed such magnificent babies...I tell them that I learned from Robirda! While they give their birds all kinds of 'magical' formulas, I just follow your guide to 'keep it simple.' My birds are now very healthy, and there has been no recurrence of the infection. Thank Goodness!" R.C., Florida
Song CD
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Do you like to keep your canaries singing? Help encourage your canaries to sing more with our CD, featuring Robirda's canaries in full song. Or, use it to help call more wild birds to your feeders, or to help make your pet parrots more comfortable.
You'll get 12 16-bit true-stereo tracks, each averaging almost 5 minutes long, for a total of over 58 minutes of canary songs, with no distracting background music. We've even posted a short sample for you to listen to, here.
Even better, you'll get all this quality for a very low price! We get a great deal of positive comments from happy customers, so we're sure you'll be pleased. A recent customer tells us:
"My 'baby' Jingles and I are both thrilled with your CD! It arrived within days of my purchase and it's the best CD out there! I have purchased every CD available, and yours was the only one my canary responded to. He was in subsong before, but is singing his little heart out now ! The CD has attracted the wild birds outside his little garden sanctuary, so my canary has lots of vocal competition now, which makes him sing even more."
Find out more about our Canary Song CD, here.
Ask Robirda
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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.
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 one of our websites, please consider joining our sponsors.
Read testimonials or find out more about becoming a sponsor. If you're looking for something different, check our home page for links to all our great products!
Our next issue is due Sunday, July 30th. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, and we look forward to seeing you all then!
"You have the most informative and helpful small bird site on the Web. I have found your information priceless and inspiring."
"Thank you for your love of birds and your commitment for helping those of us who are learning to share our lives with our feathered friends!"
"Robirda's website, bird board and e-zine are invaluable tools for any birdlover."
"I ordered 'Canary Tales' by Linda Hogan last year...Although I fully recommend buying the book, I find Robirda's book much more complete, easier to read with less difficulty finding information."
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