RARE LITTLE BIRDS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 113, 22 August 1941, Page 7

RARE LITTLE BIRDS

When Three Legs Are Ketter Than Two

" Lost, three-legged budgie. Horticultural Hall, Laing’s Road, Lower Hutt." O ran an advertisement in the Wellington papers the other week. Smart advertising, I reflected, or, else bad luck for the most curious oddity since the pinheaded Chinaman, the 40-stone woman, and a potato I once grew which resembled an uncle of mine ‘on my mother’s side. Inquiring cautiously at the Horticultural Hall in Lower Hutt, I was relieved to find it was, after all, merely clever publicity calculated to attract the public to the Grand National Cage Bird Show. which was being held in the Horticultural Hall. This must not be construed as suggesting that the Lower Hutt Cage Bird Society, which conducted the Show, had stooped to deception. The three-legged budgerigar was there, all right, hopping about in its cage as alive and bright as you and me, and probably a good deal more contented with this world. Inside the hall there were also approximately 850 assorted cage birds, all making the very deuce of a noise, and a number of busy officials, including J. R. Walker of Auckland, who is the President of the New Zealand Cage Bird Society. The three-legged budgie is actually the property of the society, but Mr. Walker looks after. it, and naturally knows a good deal about its history, habits, and temperament. __ A yellow-green hen bird with smail patches of blué feathers on her chin and

faint markings on the wings, she has a fully developed third thigh, with the foot and claws tucked against the breast. She was bred a little over three years ago by an Auckland breeder who promptly presented her to the New Zealand Society, and Mr. Walker has had her in his care ever since. A Bad-Tempered Bird Looking after such a valuable bird is not without ‘its responsibilities. What it is really worth in hard cash, Mr. Walker can’t say, though he does know that side showmen have made small fortunes out of less remarkable freaks. He had a worrying few days when the bird escaped twelve months ago. A reward was immediately offered, but when two days passed and there was no news of her whatever, Mr. Walker was beginning to think she had fallen victim to a cat or some larger bird. * But she turned up again, three miles from where she had escaped, flopping down exhausted through lack of food, on to the roof of an aviary. She had apparently been attracted by other budgerigars. Not long afterward, she celebrated her return by laying an egg, a thing which Mr. Walker had not thought possible in view of her physical deformity. And not only did she lay it, but she made a valiant attempt to hatch it. ; Whether or not she is sensitive about her deformity, she is a bad tempered little bird, and packs into her few ounces of weight the belligerency of a parachute trooper. Mr. Walker carried her down to the National Bird Show in the same cage as two Pencil Buttercup budgies, and she fought them all the way. Pencil Buttercups These two Pencil Buttercups, incidentally, are also rare birds. There are only six in the world, all of them bred by Mr. Walker, and from a scientific point of view they are priceless. Budgerigar fanciers all over the world had maintained that it was impossible to produce the strain. Another rarity in the show was a Blue Opaline budgerigar, a beautiful little bird which looked as though it had been painted a vivid blue and then covered with a coat of clear lacquer. This Blue Opaline represents another phenomenon in breeding, as a study of its parentage shows that it does not conform to the Mendelian Law _ governing inherited characteristics. The Blue Opaline is said to be worth £25, but even though this is almost the bird’s weight in gold, it is not a high value for a really rare bird. The first specimens of a certain sky-blue budgerigar developed by Japanese bird financiers were valued at £120. Incidental Intelligence from the Birdfancying Front: Mr. Walker, who used to broadcast regularly with Reg. Morgan and " Cinderella" in the 1YA Children’s sessions, has judged 48 bird shows and

four dog shows. This is believed to be a record; the unusual yellow colour of séveral canaries and one or two budgerigars at the show was due to colour feeding; tw varieties of finch are known,

for obvious reasons, as White Hooded Nun and the Black-Hooded Nun; one of the smallest birds in the show, a tiny woodfinch, has the reputation of being a killer, and is supposed to be death to any bird up to twice its own size; all the varieties of love birds at the show

came originally from Africa; love birds undoubtedly become very attached to each other, but it is a fallacy, according to experts, that immediately one of a pair dies the other sickens and dies also, ~

J.G.

M.