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Two members of our society who showed this year at the France COM Show and received Gold Medals. Saviour Camilleri won 3 Golds and Brian Hogg gained 2. To gain a gold medal the birds have to attain the standard for the breed at this high level. Results are as picture show after being studied by a COM Belgium judge.                                    

                   

 High Wycombe CBS on top of the World

  Well High Wycombe club can say they are the World Champions with our Chairman Brian brining home 2 gold and a silver medal from the world show in Porto, Portugal. He gained the gold and silver medals with his Lancashire coppies on 90 points and 91 points his third bird in this class also gained 88 points. Brian said his aim was to get a medal with a coppy as all his previous medals has been won with plain heads, well he certainly did just that. His plainhead also picked up a gold medal with 91 points. this goes to show what a world class stud of Lancashires Brian has.

                                      

             Brian was not the only person at the event representing Great Britain and team High Wycombe in Portugal, Saviour Camillieri also entered his Norwich at the show and was unlucky not to win a medal with his variegated norwich picking up 91 points, he also entered a stam of norwich (a stam is a team of 4 which should be identical) his stam gained 352 points. The final member of our team was myself entering Lizards. I came very close to picking up a medal with one of my Blue Lizards which received 90 points just one point of a bronze. These three Wycombe members made up a 5th of the GB team......So I think we can say that High Wycombe are on TOP of the WORLD with canaries....Well done lads from everyone.

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    High Wycombe's Chairman reports on the Crested Canary Revival ...........In 2006/07 the Crested Canary was deemed to be classified as "RARE BREED" by DEFA. This protects the breed from being culled in the event of a disease out break in the area of the country for which DEFA decided a cull was necessary to contain the disease. If we look deeper into the need to term the "CREST" rare you will find their are probably less than 100 breeding hens in the country! What a sad time for a wonderful indigenous  breed of canary which in its hay day was the most sought after breed to exhibition canary in the country.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's the "CREST" was at its most popular, with large classes of quality exhibits at most shows. Its  status was at its highest and was a beautiful bird admired by all. It had evolved from the Lancashire canary and its turn helped produce the Norwich and Gloster which are so popular today. With the enthusiasm for the breed and the high status of the exhibitor which went with owning the best bird came its downfall. A price hike! Birds changed hands for hundreds of pounds and so the average wage earner was unable to buy stock. So the decline started and when you look at some of our exhibition canaries today you must ask yourself which breed will be next! Will it be the Border canary which is now being priced out of the market? Other birds commanding high prices are Yorkshire and Norwich canaries. You have to ask is it good for the future of the breeds that command these high prices.

The Fife and Gloster canaries, being more affordable, have taken over from the other breeds of canary in numbers on the show bench, but if you like a larger canary then you must go to the Border, Yorkshire, Norwich Lancashire or Crested canary. The Crested is about to change in both price and availability if a small gathering of breeders, four dedicated breeders in fact have stated to pool there stocks of this magnificent breed of canary and help each other by swapping available stock, which in turn will mean more birds bred. It needs dedication and a "want" for the breed to again become more available and reasonably priced. this process of swapping birds stated in a small way last year and has already had good results. this year three of the breeders in the scheme have swapped stock to enable more breeding pairs for 2008 breeding season.

A stock register is being produced to calculate the numbers of stock, bloodlines etc. this is needed to ensure no in-breeding of stocks and keep the bird vibrant. it is a determined effort to regain some lost ground but we all know it will not be "plain sailing". So i am asking all other breeders of the Crested canary who would like to share there information to contact John Page who is going to produce our stock register. We need Numbers, Sex, Age and Bloodline details. All information will be kept confidential but progress of the breeding plan for the Crest survival will be published after the 2008 breeding season.

Please contact John Page a the address below or one of the other members. Details are below an if you are on e-mail it is easier for the information to be circulated and passed on to our members.

Letters are also welcome....We hope to make this project happen. 

John Page. Nick Hall. Dominic/Andrew Franz.Brian Hogg at  andrew.franz@ntlworld.com  Tel: 01322 521661.

I look forward to seeing you around the shows and reading your stories.    Brian Hogg

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