Les Rance, Editor, The Parrot Society UK | www.theparrotsocietyuk.org


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les.rance@


INTRODUCT I


n the introduction to the spring edition of Bird Scene I wrote about the difficulties we would have importing birds into this country from the EU. I do not wish to go into that again as you can read about it in the Bird Scene archive. What is certain is that bird dealers are becoming very short of stock and it will be very much down to hobbyist breeders to try to meet the demand for birds. To a very large extent that will depend on us having a good breeding season. So far I am not hearing that hobbyist breeders are doing terribly well with their breeding results. This is not that surprising against a backdrop of the most early morning frosts in April since records were kept and a May which has given us plenty of rain, high winds and thunderstorms, none of which is any good for bird breeding. As I write this on Friday 21st May the rain is hitting the windows in the office and the forecast for the weekend is that the wind and rain will continue, even next week does not sound very good from a weather point of view. On a brighter note the vaccination rollout against Covid-19 seems to be going well with increasing numbers receiving at least their first jab. We just need to be sensible and try not to travel abroad for fear of picking up another Covid variant, The so called Indian variant appears to be gaining momentum in the UK so that will have to be closely monitored as it appears that is more


04 BIRD SCENE


contagious than previous UK variants. What this all means for our Shows is still a little difficult to predict. Certainly our July Show at Stafford has had to be cancelled but we are hopeful that both the October Show and the Help Bird Keeper’s event on 5th December at Stafford will be able to go ahead. I guess time will tell. What effect this will have on Shows and when we can have them we will just have to wait and see. It may well be difficult to obtain insurance cover to indemnify The Parrot Society against the risks of Coronavirus, as the premiums may be exorbitant, but again we will have to wait and see. During the spring months it is always important to feed your birds each day, not only to ensure they have plenty of food to feed their babies on but also to study your birds and make sure they are not distressed by the weather conditions. Those who keep their stock in breeding rooms where they can easily turn up the heating however, are in a far more satisfactory position. In this edition of Bird Scene we are very pleased to have an excellent article on part 8 of our 50th Anniversary of the P.S UK celebrations held at Chester Zoo by Barbara Heidenreich a world-renowned animal training and behaviour consultant. A quality article on an avicultural favourite the Cuban Finch by Graeme Hyde and a Wire Breeding Cage Trial by David Allen. Also in this issue we have a pictorial


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