When I started keeping birds in the seventies I acquired specimens of all the Grass Parakeets available in the UK and was successful in breeding pure bred strains, if I needed out crosses or replacements I was able to contact breeders through the Parrot Society magazine or at our area meetings. I visited an address in North London that turned out to be a rectory, the vicar showed me two aviaries stocked with turquoisines and I was able to select a bird from each to
make up an unrelated pair. On another occasion I needed a cock Bourke to match up with a lonely hen I was able to contact a local member who had just what I wanted a young beautifully marked cock bursting with vitality.
I
During my visit to Australia I have many treasured memories of birds I was able to see at close range. Highlights were Leadbeaters, Cockatoos and Emus we filmed at a water hole and Bluewings foraging in the scrub on Kangaroo Island; Pennants in the Blue Mountains and standing on the deck of my ship docked in Brisbane the return of a flock of Galahs to their roost in adjacent trees. They did a circuit of the harbour in the evening sun and as they wheeled above in perfect formation their colour changed from grey to pink and back again, a memory that I can still visualise some fifty years on. The Galahs I saw in Norman Cooper’s aviaries with cream feathers replacing the grey could not have had that effect.
44 BIRD SCENE
put him in a 9 x 4 foot flight with the hen and they were mating within the hour when I went out to see how they were settling in, a good start to what proved to be a long and prolific line of natural Bourkes.
I find this is no longer possible, there are no members I know that keep a collection of normals, so I go to the Parrot Society sale days and if I am in luck, find a suitable bird. It has to be introduced to my layout and a new partner, after a few months eggs are laid and chicks hatched. On fledging I frequently find that one of the chicks is different to the others. Recently I have had a Rosa Bourke and a Cinnamon Splendid, the parent bird had a mutant trace in its parentage, another year lost.
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