South Western Zebra Finch Club

South Western Zebra Finch Club 60^th Anniversary Open Show.

The club’s 60^th Anniversary open show was held in conjunction with the Southwest Bengalese Finch Club with a soup song of Foreign Bird entries held at The Kenn Centre, Kennford near Exeter on 17^th September 2023.

Entries for the Zebra Finch club totaled 220 with 183 benched and for the first time included the new colour mutation ‘Charcoal’ which has only recently been recognized by the Zebra Finch Society as a standard mutation in its own right.

With 15 Champion exhibitors, 12 Novice and 4 Juniors all competing with their birds, there were some large classes for the Judges Peter Harrison and Adrian Wills to judge with a class of 17 in the Novice Adult Normal taking the day’s record, but with other classes of up to 14 being quite frequent.

Some exhibitors had traveled no small distances from as far away as Kent, Sussex and from all over Wales, having to rise extremely early or stay overnight at local chain hotels. So, a BIG thank you to them who helped make the show the success it was.

This year for the first time, the show catering was provided by ‘Kimmy’s Snack Bar’ of Newton Abbot who provided amazing food and beverage from the Kenn Centre’s own kitchen. Comments like “That was the best Jacket Spud ever” were heard. Well done Ladies!

Amongst the generous sponsorships for the show Haith’s Bird Seeds sponsored some rosettes and seed vouchers to the value of 12kg of Foreign Finch mix. These awards were presented to- The Best Junior Adult, Best Junior Breeder, Best Foreign and Best Foreign Current Year Bred. Thank you Haith’s

The winning exhibitors were-

Best In Show, Best Champion and Best Champion Breeder went to Brent Humphries with his Lightback breeder pair and followed up with the Colour award for Lightback.

Best Champion Adult was K & W Davies with their Chestnut Flanked White (CFW) which also took the Colour award for CFW.

Best Novice and Best Novice Breeder was Chas Coakley with his CFW Breeder pair which incidentally was Chas’s very first show. So, a BIG well done to him.

Best Novice Adult went to Gareth Hughes with his adult pair of CFW.

Best Junior and Best Junior Adult was taken by Bethany Elliott with a Normal pair.

Best Junior Breeder, was Thomas & Teigan Burton with their Penguin breeder pair.

The ‘single bird’ class awards went to the following-

Best Single Bird and Champion Single Bird went to Mark Elliott

Best Novice Single Bird went to Tony Stubbs

Best Junior single Bird awarded to Mia Elliot

The section Rundowns were as follows-

Champion Adult- 2^nd – Paul Edmundson, 3^rd K&W Davies, 4^th Brent Humphries. 5^th Nigel Smith, 6^th Brent Humphries, 7^th Lee Calford.

Champion Breeder- 2^nd K & W Davies, 3^rd Mark Elliott, 4^th Andy Cole, 5^th Andy Cole, 6^thK & W Davies 7^th Paul Edmundson.

Novice Adult- 2^nd Gareth Hughes, 3^rd Gareth Hollings, 4^th Russell Jones, 5^th Tony Stubbs, 6^th Alex Norris, 7^th Tony Stubbs.

Novice Breeder- 2^nd Chas Coakly, 3^rd Gareth Hughes, 4^th Gareth Hughes, 5^th Alex Norris, 6^th Chas Coakly, 7^th Russell Jones.