South Western Zebra Finch Club

Summer Show report

Sizzling Weather but Sparkling Birds.

Members of the South Western Zebra Finch Club braved the recent heat wave weather to exhibit their birds at the Club’s ‘Summer Show’ held at Kennford nr Exeter.

With 76 entries received between 7 exhibitors which made up Zebra Finches, Self and Dilute Bengalese, Foreign Birds, and sales

Making a brilliant job of judging the Zebra Finches was ZFS Champion Exhibitor Andrew Cole, with Bengalese and Foreign Birds judged by the club’s chairman Paul Paintain who also assessed the sales birds. Thank you to them.

Whilst the weather outside was rather warm to say the least, the exhibits enjoyed the coolness of the show room with judging stands positioned in the shade but with loads of natural light to make the assessment as easy as possible for the judges.

Best In Show went to Huw Davies with his Champion Normal pair, which also achieved Best Champion award, Best of Colour for Normal and the Haith’s sponsorship award for Best Champion Birds. His Black Breasted pair was awarded 7^th Best and the Colour award for Any other Standard Variety (AOSV) He also took the award for Best Self Bengalese.

2^nd Best in Show went to Alex Norris with his Novice Fawn pair, which also received the Best Novice award, Best of Colour for Fawn, and the Haith’s sponsorship award for Best Novice Birds. Interestingly Alex also took Best Foreign Bird with his Hecks Grass Finch.

3^rd Best in Show was won by Adrian Wills with his Champion Silver pair and received the Best of Colour award for Dilute. His Dilute Bengalese were judged the best of class and eventually Best Bengalese too.

4^th Best in Show was achieved by Mason Rigdon’s Penguin pair which were awarded the Best of Colour award for Penguin.

5^th Best in show went to this year’s rosette sponsor Gareth Hollings with his Novice Chestnut Flanked White pair, and again awarded the Best of Colour for CFW. His single bird which was an Orange Breast/Black Breast took the award for the Best New Colour Mutation.

6^th Best in Show was a pair of Champion Pied exhibited by our own ‘Mr Pied & White’ Peter Cannan, which took the award for Best of Colour for Pied and similarly his White pair achieved the Best of Colour for White award.

7^th was Huw’s Champion Black Breasted pair as described earlier.

The Chairman, Paul Paintain, presented winners Huw and Alex with the Haith’s sponsored prize of seed voucher for 12.75Kg sack of Foreign Finch mixture and publicly thanked Haith’s for their sponsorship. He then went on to present the ‘Best in Show’ trophy to this year’s winner Huw Davies.

In a comment after the show and the cleaning up had been done, Paul Paintain said “Thanks to all those who entered their birds at the show, although down on numbers it was still a very enjoyable day.

My congratulations to the winners on the day and my thanks to those who helped set up and dismantle the staging and help with the clearing up at the end.