Going To The Bird Show

This was going to be a somewhat serious post about Serious Life Things but then I went to the bird show and now it is about that and I hope you like to learn about birds, because oh boy, that is what you're going to do. 

goin' to the bird show and we're gonna get ma-a-arried
goin' to the bird show of birds

I went to the bird show because my friend Rupert, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, suggested we go as a nice Sunday morning group activity.  Rupert very much wanted to see a Gloster Canary, which we will all be lucky enough to view a photo of later.  The Gloster Canary is Ruper't’s favourite bird and if you don’t have a favourite bird, well neither do I, and that is why people like Rupert suggest going to Bird Shows and people like you and I do not. If the echidna was a bird he would be my favourite.

Alas, after Rupert suggested that as a group we attend the 111th Christchurch Annual Bird Show (invitation: "Christchurch Bird Club Invites Fanciers to Exhibit and Attend"), he managed to sleep in on the morning of the Bird Show, leaving behind him a group of at best semi-committed Bird Show Attendees who were in no way ‘Fanciers’ but who somehow felt, even though the instigating Rupert could not be there, that we should go anyway. Much as when a loved relative passes away and says on their deathbed, “visit the Colosseum for me, one last time”. But… less so.

Here is the Gloster Canary. Would you want to let him down?

So we went. It was a large room full of birds, which we expected, and there was a brass band practicing in the room above the hall, which we did not expect, and so we wandered the rows of birds to the gentle sound of Salvation Army hymns.

For your edification, are five things I learnt at the Bird Show.

1.  It is hard to take a nice picture at the Bird Show

Because every bird looks like it is in jail.

Tweety? I haven't heard that name in years.

2.  Colour-fed Canaries are a thing

Do you remember in primary school when you split the stem of a flower and put the ends in two glasses of coloured water, and the petals of the flower changed colour?  Turns out you can do that with birds!  It's exactly the same, you just tie him to a plank and put one of his feet in a glass of blue water and the other one in a glass of green water and no you don't, who would even come up with that idea.

What you do instead is you take a nice regular light-coloured canary and from a young age you feed him colouring agents (what's in them? we don't know, but only because we didn't google it), and then he does his first moult, and when he gets his new feathers... BAM!  

The colouring agents in the food change the colour of his feathers, and depending on what you feed him, he can come out in all manner of flashy colours. And then you take him to the Bird Show and the judge says “ahh, you certainly have done a spectacular job of dyeing this bird,” and then I suppose you put that on your Facebook page and feel good about it.

BAM!

3. The Roller Canary is a thing as well

An important part of the Bird Show - some say the most important part - is the judging of the birds, and awarding of the title of (wait for it) Best Bird.  Each bird has a Standard that it is judged to, which outlines exactly what makes a Bird the Best.

Best Bird of Cellblock B (the B is for Bird)

The majority of the categories are things you would expect, like:

• feathers, are they nice, have you trimmed them so they are more symmetrical (don't, it'll lose you points)

• proportion (from the finch standard: "a show bird should be the appropriate size for its kind [...] bigger is not necessarily better")

• eyes, which "should be of the correct size and shape", which seems sort of a no-brainer

• deportment of bird ("the bird should show itself to advantage, projecting an air of alert confidence")

• beak, general quality of

• overall look of the bird, which "outweighs the sum of the individual characteristics"

However, the Roller Canary is not judged on any of these things.  He is no ordinary bird and the calibre of his beak matters not.

The Roller Canary is judged on song alone. 

When it is time for his judging, he is taken into a room with the judges and let out of his cage for exactly ten minutes (a cage which will, according to the standard, "ideally allow the judge to focus attention on the bird, with no distractions", apart of course from the obvious distraction that the bird looks like he is in jail, but despite this the judge must try to put the presumably horrible crimes of this bird out of his mind, and check instead whether his eyes are of the correct size and shape).

At this point, the Roller Canary must sing, and his singing is judged meticulously, and then the judge scores it and writes him a report card, which honestly is the best thing about this entire Bird Show because the report cards read like they were written for people:

"A confident bird going places! Well done!"
This bird got 61 points

"Perch tripped him up, a pity, as I feel he had something to give."
i did not write down how many points this bird got sorry

What happens, you may ask, if the Roller Canary doesn't sing at all during his 10-minute judging opportunity? 

He gets an 'N/S' rating (I don't know what that stands for but I assume "Not Sing").  Also, his scorecard gives a short but damning summary of how exactly he has fucked up his big moment  The N/S bird featured below also looks vaguely embarrassed. 

His comment was "more interested in eating than in singing" and he did not get any points at all.

same tho

4. Everyone is surprised you are there.

When we arrived, the nice bird lady taking our $7 entry fee assumed we were members, was openly flabbergasted when we were just People Who Came To Look At Birds, and I think tipped off the rest of the Bird Club as during our visit we were regularly accosted by enthusiastic bird types wanting to know "if we had any at home" and offering to fetch the Secretary's details in case we wanted to join.

We did not want to join but one of our group was coaxed into admitting that in their youth they had a cockatoo* and for a terrible second I thought we might be in serious danger of becoming Fanciers Under Duress but thankfully we were able to slip away and look at the rabbit display at the back of the hall, because of course there was a rabbit display at the back of the hall, presumably because the birds like something to look at.

Go to your local bird show!  They will appreciate it and you will get to see some cool birds.
Even if you are more interested in eating than in singing.

tfw you know you are the best bird

*who didn’t? ba-dum tssh!