ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 103, © 2004
No reprints without permission

Our latest CD of Robirda's canaries singing consists of 12 16-bit true-stereo tracks, each averaging almost 5 minutes long, for a total of 58 minutes and 48 seconds of canary songs.

here. Listen carefully, and you will be able to hear the different positions of each bird!

We are now offering New Songs From The Birdroom for only $12.00, plus $2.99 shipping and handling. Order yours today!

The folks at Bird & Cage aim to provide birdkeepers with a great selection of good quality cages and birdcage accessories for great prices, and their customers agree.

A recent customer comments, "Just a note to let you know I received my order and I am very happy with your speed of service and the GREAT breeding/flight cage. Thank you and hope to do business with you again!"

Find out for yourself by visiting BirdandCage.com

Our special autographed edition of Robirda's book Brats in Feathers, Keeping Canaries has been getting a great response from readers. Here's just a few of the comments we've received;

"You have a way of making things easy to understand, and I love the look and feel of your book - not to mention that it is so easy to find the information I am looking for. THANK YOU!!!"

"It's everything I imagined it would be and I'm just thrilled with my copy! - so great to have and to hold!!! It's a very attractive book, and a nice size as well - one that I can easily tuck and have on hand to refer to and read whenever and wherever."

"You have given us excellent assistance in keeping our canary alive! The advice of other 'experts' nearly killed him, including two vets who did NOT know about canaries, and gave us dangerously wrong advice."

Learn more about Robirda's books and ebooks here.

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. For all those who continue to help out in so many ways, thank you for your warmth and caring.

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 Sept 26th. 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
Sept 12, 2004

Welcome to Robirda's Companion Birds eZine

For breeder or pet bird owners who care.

Hello! Welcome to Flock Talk's 103rd issue. Subscribe and unsubscribe information for the email version of this ezine is at the bottom of this webpage.

Table of Contents

Website News

This issue features two stories, our second place prize winner, and an honourable mention. We are pleased to announce both stories, each a tale of a first bird who convinced her owner to become a canary breeder. Woojdan and Lynn, please send us an email so we can arrange to send you your prizes?

There is still three days left before the contest closes. The next issue will feature the top winning story, and the author will be awarded our grand prize package. and enter while there's still time! Check it out, and enter while there's still time!

Bird Site Review

Every once in a while you find one of those websites that manages to give your heart-strings a good yank. This is one of those sites. The owner has taken on a huge task, not only of taking in unwanted parrots and rehabilitating them - but that of educating the general public on the care, keeping, and just general understanding of pet birds. There's plenty of photos posted, and through them you will get to meet, not only a wonderful 'birdman', but his birds and his audiences as well.

Tug 'n Swing

We've temporarily sold out of all our Tug 'n Swings, and will have to wait a couple of weeks before being able to continue to fill orders. Find out why our new Tug 'N Swing is so popular - it's the perfect toy to give your birds something to pull at and chew on while they swing! A great favourite with small birds from finches and canaries, to lovebirds and 'tiels, this swing keeps the busiest beaks occupied for a long time. They are going fast, so get your order in soon! Picture and details are atrobirda.com/swing.html

Feature Story

Woojdan Raza
United Kingdom
Copyright © 2004

I remember the pet shop where I found my first canary. Walking in, I curiously looked around, and admired the cleanliness and the warmth. To me this place was a haven.

The first thing that caught my eye that Monday in July 2001 was a gorgeous, vibrant canary, hopping merrily from perch to perch.

I stood transfixed and gazed in pure wonder at the bundle of feathers trilling merrily away. From that day I have never lost interest in canaries.

You can guess what happened from there. I convinced my parents to buy her (I was only 13 at the time) and lovingly raised her. She is a unique character and I cherish her in every way.

Physically, she is quite plump, with black and yellow markings over her body. We named her 'Darling' for her innocent and cute look, even though some would argue that birds cannot express emotions. As time went on, she developed into a stubborn and resolved character. She would trill away stubbornly if I ever once forgot to remove the cloth from her cage in the morning.

Once I had done this, she would hop to the food perch and stand there resolute, indicating her desire for fresh food, until I had replaced her seed and water and given her green foods.

Her temper would then die down and she would fly out of the cage, jump on my shoulder and nip me lovingly on the ear as a sign of appreciation. She spent the day admiring herself on the perch and would sing me a cute song as I walked past. Now and again, she was allowed to fly free, and her favorite activity was to find a comfy nook and cranny in my room, sit down and fluff up, then persistently call me until I got up and picked her up, cupped in my hands.

She would show her 'thanks' by fluffing her feathers around my hands as if to try and make them warm. As I resumed my work, she would hop curiously around the table and peck at any 'alarming' objects she found.

This never failed to amuse me, and I would end up in fits of laughter as she tried to work out what was wrong with me. Another time when the phone rang, she hopped onto the phone and trilled at it as loud as she could.

As the day drew to an end, she would return to her cage and as I covered her, would look at me thankfully with her beady black eyes.

Our first breeding season was unforgettable, as I did not plan to breed canaries. I came home one day in early spring to notice Darling furiously shredding her newspaper. I thought all birds wanted to make nests to sit in so I did not mind. Little did I know then!

I gave her toilet rolls, kitchen rolls and soft moss, and shortly after she had built her nest, she began to display unusually. Every time I put my hand in her cage, she would squat and call to me in soft twittering. This behavior escalated to an alarming point, so I decided one day to purchase a book on canaries. It was quite detailed, and reading it I discovered the cause of her behavior. She wanted a mate.

At the thought of breeding canaries, my heart swelled. It would be the perfect way to remember Darling once she had passed on - I could have her offspring. So in early 2002 I began to set up my breeding room. It was at this point that I found Robirda's website. If I hadn't, I may not now have the five most beautiful reminders of Darling I could have ever wished for.

We'd always had an unused spare room with plenty of light, and this was quickly refurbished into a breeding room equipped with 7 breeding cages and plenty of light. Darling was placed in a breeding cage with a nest pan, and the next day I added a gorgeous and bold male who we named Thunder. He quickly paired with her, and I allowed nature to do the rest.

The eggs were promptly laid, and soon I was gazing admiringly at 5 dark blue speckled eggs. As the days dragged on I became impatient for hatching, but the sight of Darling giving me her thankful look while sitting on the nest, and the quick glimpses of Thunder feeding her as she sat, always quelled my restlessness.

As the due date finally arrived I discovered that the eggs had not hatched yet. I had not candled them, and lost hope in them altogether. However, on opening the birdroom door the next day, I discovered tiny peeping sounds coming from the nest. I calmed myself and reminded myself not to push Darling off the nest; however she hopped off herself. To my surprise there were the two smallest creatures I had ever seen, their pink heads rising above their tiny pink bodies, purple skin covering their eyes.

As the days flew by they developed into fluffy bundles, each one invoking a sympathetic sound from me. The next year was the same. Darling's stubborn and resolved nature never changed, even through breeding season. She was the first hen to build a nest at the dawn of breeding season, and she built it swiftly and smoothly. She accepted her mate quickly, and not long after, her eggs started to appear. By the time the other hens had laid their first clutch, Darling had raised four or five fully fledged chicks.

But this story does have its share of bad times. Last year just after Christmas, my nephews came to visit. One little nephew, intending no harm, opened the door of Darling's cage, and she, terrified by a stranger, flew out of the cage and into the wall.

My nephew was petrified with fear, and ran to tell me what had happened. We found that Darling had broken her leg, but soon enough all was put as right as it could be. Now, healed but without the use of her leg, she is faring excellently, and next year there is the possibility that I will allow her to try raising babies again.

But that is another story.

Woojdan Raza
United Kingdom
Copyright © 2004

Honourable Mention

Lynn Ake, USA
Copyright © 2004

Often the events which create the greatest changes in our lives start out so small that at the time we barely notice them...

On Easter Sunday 1987, I answered the door to find my sister Beth and her husband John standing on the doormat holding an oddly-shaped towel-wrapped package. She thrust the bundle into my arms and said, "Her name's Audrey, and she's all yours".

The package proved to contain the circa-1930 bird cage which had once housed our childhood parakeet, and now held a small canary.

"We thought you needed a pet," they explained. Since my divorce, the only living things that shared my small apartment were potted plants; and a canary would not need to be walked, nor would it claw the furniture during the long hours I worked.

Besides, Beth and John had recently started raising canaries. They had gotten started when the Victorian house museum that they ran wanted a canary to live in the antique brass cage in the parlour, as shown in old photos of the house. Big Earl lived with Beth and John when he wasn't singing for the tourists, and soon he was joined by several other canaries of different varieties and colors. John's family had raised canaries when he was young, so he knew about their care and breeding.

I had been entranced during my last visit by the lively colorful flock. The only other canary I'd had contact with was my Grandmother's bird, Tippee, a nervous, flighty creature who went into hysterics if anyone so much as came into the same room with it. Beth and John's fearless, curious canaries seemed almost a different species. They had bought Audrey as an adult hen to breed, but after two unsuccessful seasons decided she would be better as someone's pet, and so she had come to me.

"What do you call that color?" I asked. With her brown head, wings, and tail, and rusty-orange breast, she looked to me like a miniature robin. "She's a bronze," I was told, and I thought her prettier than any plain yellow bird could be. They told me how to care for her, gave me some feed to start her out, and said to call with any questions or problems.

It took us some time to become used to each other. At first, I was almost more afraid of her than she of me. She seemed so tiny and delicate that I was afraid to catch her to trim her nails or examine her, but she was, in fact, remarkably patient. I spent a good deal of time just watching her: watching her eat (she liked the black rape seeds best), or watching her bathe or groom herself.

One day I came home from work to find that she had become trapped by the band that held her food dish in place. Instead of struggling until she was exhausted, she waited for me to come to free her. I never knew how long she'd waited, but I found another way to secure her dish that would not harm her.

When the days turned warm, I put her cage on the kitchen window sill, so that she could see outside. I saved the leavings from her dish for the wild birds, and they would line up on the outside of the window sill, like kids at a lunch counter, finishing anything she hadn't eaten.

She seemed to enjoy the company of the sparrows and purple finches who came to visit. She also scared me by developing a taste for my houseplants. Fortunately she never got hold of anything poisonous, but I learned to be careful to keep the plants away from hungry little beaks.

Audrey lived with me for five years. I never did know how old she was. She had a good life, and got me started with the birds who have changed my life. Raising canaries has brought my sister and myself closer, introduced me to many new and interesting people I never would have otherwise met, and taken me places I would never have otherwise gone. Thank you, Beth and John, for Audrey; and thank you Audrey, for a great adventure.

Lynn Ake, USA
Copyright © 2004

Editor's Note;The black seeds in most canary seed mixes are roughly 60% fat; any bird showing a preference for eating mostly these can develop fatty liver syndrome or heart problems, and should have its diet adjusted so that these seeds comprise only a small portion of the total diet, ideally about 5-10%.