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David & Heather Johncock Direct Sales to Aviculture

Ph: 08 8381 6141 Mobile: 0419 828 452 Email wfbirds@tpg.com.au

ABN 712 890 140 84

All enquiries welcome

Products available; Premium Breeder Pellet

Premium Maintenance Pellet

Premium Small Bird Crumbles

Complete Lori use wet or Dry

Fortified High Energy Biscuit

Solu-vite Plus Vitamin powder wet/dry use

Pink Vitamins Minerals with Probiotic

Solu-Salts

Catch Nets

All Pellets and Lori mix contain Probiotic

We currently offer a “to your door” delivery service to

most areas via Hunter Express or Aust Post at an additional

cost.

News & Even t s

Meeting Dates

November 13th

November 29th Christmas — see front page for details

2010 Dates

Advised next newsletter

a better year ahead as many speakers already confirmed

Sales Calendar for 2010

As approved by VAC

Next newsletter following ratification by VAC

Annual Aviary Visits

Going to South West South Australia [Mt Gambier area],

keep an eye out and your ear to the ground for details.

Several clubs have requested interest in coming to Goulburn Valley next year,

we are still in negotiation, details as they come to hand

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Most important this month

Annual Christmas Lunch Sunday November 29th

Echuca — Pride of the Murray 12:30pm - 3:00pm

Cost: Adult $20 Child $5 2 course Carvery

Attendance MUST be advised to: Warren Yardy

[03] 5874 3003

MEMBERSHIP FEES ARE NOW OVERDUE

October 2009

Vol um e 11 I ssue 4

Inside this issue:

Meeting Notes 3

Our Aviary Visit 4

Report by Norm 6

Members renewal 7

Meeting Dates 8

Sales dates 8

Christmas: Time to contemplate

Or just hot in Summer ?

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G o u l b u r n V a l l e y B r a n c h T h e A v i c u l t u r a l S o c i e t y

O f A u s t r a l i a I n c R e g N o A 1 0 2 4 1

Co r r e sp on de nc e Ad dr e ss :

The Secretary 22 Wallace St Congupna, Vic 3633

Phone: (03) 5829 9921 email: mareynol@bigpond.net.au

President: Frank Johnston (03) 5873 5245

Vice President: Bob Spooner (03) 5482 3682

Secretary: Mark Reynolds (03) 5829 9921

Asst Secretary: Carl Wallden (03) 5827 1298

Treasurer: Warren Yardy (03) 5874 3003

Exchange Steward: Karl Neuwirth (03) 5823 1313

Sales Steward: Mark Bollard (03) 5865 5498

Membership Steward: Mark Godwill 0428 571 758

Newsletter Editor: Ron Hicks (03) 5482 6044

Email : ronald.hicks@bigpond.com

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Membership Renewal / Application

Renewal due in July

Sign up for: Price:

□ Single $ 6.00

□ Family $10.00

□ Junior (under 16 years) $ 4.00

Name: _________________________________________

Address: ________________________________

______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________

Phone: ________________________________

Email: ________________________________

Method of Payment:

□ Cheque □ Cash

□ Money Order

Signature: ________________________________

Please make cheques payable to GV Branch A.S.A

and send with remittance to:

22 Wallace Street Congupna Vic 3633

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Gardening with Gardner the Gardeners husband

One day I was watering my orchids in our shadehouse when I seen a clump of grass in one of my hanging baskets. I thought a mouse had built a nest in it and I almost pulled it down. With a closer look I realized it was a wrens nest, it contained three eggs. I took a photo of them, then a few days later I took another picture as the baby birds were cracking out of the eggs. As you see I followed their progress day by day until they fledged.

The nest was a domed affair made of grass and lined with soft material e.g. feathers, lint etc. It was suspended about 1.7mts off the ground and nest hygiene was evident.

On fledging, the female wren tried to lure me away from the young birds by forming her body into a mouse like posture and scurrying along the ground mimicking a small rodent.

Another pair of wrens have built a nest in some low growing shrubs planted especially to encourage birds into our garden. It had three eggs in it but only two hatched, the other egg was infertile. The female wren is a very light sitter and as soon as I ap-proached the nest she would fly out of it. The parent birds were seen feeding the young with insects assisted by another fully colored male. He was tolerated by the dominate pair only while he was helping to feed them and soon sent on his way.

The Superb Fairy Wren has bred up well in recent years in our area. As I write these notes another hen was seen with pieces of grass in her beak ready to build again. A young Starling crashed into our glass window and was immediately attacked by both males and female and soon chased away. I throw crumbs from my breakfast table out on our patio and it is a great pleasure to see a family of Blue Wrens come bounding in to feed on them.

Cheers Norm Gardner

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September Meeting

A VAC report was given by our delegate Henk de Groot. Henk detailed the changes in legislation and advised all of the

birds taken off the ‘licence required’ list, he also had a report showing the reasons why some had been taken off and others not. Henk raised his concerns about the birds that are currently being kept on licence in very small numbers and that the DNRE are seriously looking into them and they could take them off licence. Henk also advised he is waiting for

all clubs to send in their bird sale paperwork so he can then collate and submit to the department for approval.

It was decided to have the Christmas Break-up on a Paddlesteamer in Echuca, Ron Hicks to follow up details for October

meeting.

The main topic for the evening was a power point presentation on our recent aviary visit to Mornington, we had so many

to show that we ran out of time, thanks to all who contributed the photos.

Winners: Badge - Steve Marven Raffle - Bruce Trotter

October Meeting

Our Christmas breakup will be on the 29th November, we are going to have a river cruise on a paddlewheeler with a two

course meal. The cost is $47.50pp with the club paying $27.50 of it. The boat leaves at 12.30pm from the Echuca wharf.

We have decided to go to South West South Australia for our aviary visit in 2010, it will be a two night stay, in 2011 we

plan to go back to Tasmania.

The main topic for the evening was guest speaker David Holmes from Howlong. David started with a brief overview of

his background and followed that up with a DVD on Ground Hornbills in South Africa. After the DVD David then went through a Power Point presentation on his private collection on finches and softbills including some of the gadgets he

uses and how he has set-up his aviaries to successfully breed his birds. He then finished off with a few slides on his

trips to Indonesia and some of the birds available at the markets there.

Winners: Badge - Ray Russell Raffle - Bruce Starrit

David received a parrot for his birthday. This parrot was fully grown with a bad atti-tude and terrible vocabulary. Every other word was an expletive. Those that weren't expletives were, to say the least, rude. David tried hard to change the bird's attitude. He was constantly saying polite words and playing soft music, he did anything he could think of. Nothing worked. When he yelled at the bird, the bird got worse. If he shook the bird, the bird got madder and ruder. Finally in a moment of desperation, David put the parrot in the freezer. For a few moments he heard the bird squawking, kicking and screaming and then suddenly, there was quiet. David was frightened that he might have actually hurt the bird and quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto David's extended arm and said: "I'm sorry that I might have offended you with my language and actions, so I ask for your forgiveness. I will try to correct my behavior." David was astounded at the bird's change in attitude and was about to ask what had changed him when the parrot continued: “May I ask what the chicken did?”

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Annual Aviary Visit

Mornington Peninsular Aviculture Society

Being a relatively short trip it was pleasing to see a full bus leave Shepparton in the cold hours of the morning. Being short it was a bus and not a coach, so our regular „driver‟ Ian was just that, a poorly driver not a captain this trip. It was also pleasing to see some new faces, but more about that later.

The drive to our first stop seen us pass 2 areas of news importance over the past months. We seen vast areas decimated by the February bushfires, much of the bush just starting to regenerate along with some empty blocks and many houses one won-ders how they are still there. We also travelled along much of the route of the North-South pipeline, love it or hate it there was certainly plenty of work for trucks as they all seemed to be there and getting in our way for a speedy start to the day.

Day 1 seemed to be finch day, the first stop at Peter„s was not only enlightening from the unusual species he keeps but also the denseness of the plants in the aviaries and the fact that very little roofing was in evidence. Lots of shelter along the sides for the wind but not much on top.

Next it was off to the Peper brothers, although a shadow of years gone by, still a won-derful collection of birds, especially the Silver-eared Mesia‟s. Truly a wonderful set-up for any bird keeper to admire and dream of, even the parrot guys would get great use out of it.

Over the hills and around the bends brought us to Rob & Kay‟s. What a collection of all sorts here, small finches, parrots, ducks, chooks, geese, wallabies and even some Blackbuck antelope. It was here that a novice on tour came to grief, for a rural dweller of his experience you would have thought he knew what an electric fence was, oh well sure does now.

It was then off to lunch, huge meals, a wonder anyone stayed awake for the afternoon session. It was then off to suburbia to visit a couple of backyards.

Firstly we visited John with his small but impressive collection, wrens are his passion and even though they are fast and small everyone had a glimpse, other notables here were crimson chats and purple-crowned pigeons. John agreed to come up some time next year to give us an insight into the keeping of wrens.

Lastly for the day we visited Steven, the smallest backyard one could imagine but wow was it packed with delights. Steven loves his ‟singing‟ birds and had agreat col-lection, more Bul-Buls than I have seen in one place before, siskins, green singers, silver-eyes, parrot finches and many, many more.

More food, it was off to the racecourse for dinner with the local members, again no one was disappointed, though I think a few only had entrée and left it at that.

What a devastating start to Day 2 to find out it was parrots, parrots, parrots all day.

It was off to Phil‟s with his wonderful collection of predominantly lories and lorikeets, then around to Peter and the Paul‟s, where many unlikely to be seen elsewhere muta-tions of native parrots were observed. This area had a wide range of Rosella muta-tions, including many combinations to numerous to mention, let alone get photo‟s of.

Cont…….pg 5 5

From …..pg 4

After passing the crocodile in the front dam, it became obvious these guys like native mutations. We were at Lindsay‟s with his great collection of Princess Parrots, some of the best normals and blues I‟ve seen plus colors laid on. Especially impressive was a LimeBlue cock bird, white all over except for pale sky blue wings. Lindsay also colony breeds Quakers and Nanday conures.

Off again to visit David and you guessed it more native mutations, rosella‟s red-rumps, neophema‟s. To be different David also has some non natives, conures and amazons.

I‟m sure all on the trip will say the next stop to visit MaryRose was an eyeopener and something not to be forgotten. Waterfowl heaven, black Swan, mute swans, ducks of all sorts, magpie geese, Canadian and Egyptian geese. No doubt missed a few, and then there were the guinea fowl, emu‟s, chooks of all sorts, peacocks, even an ostrich. Throw in some wallabies and a red deer and you get the picture. All this in a wonder-ful setting of some 10 acres with „lakes‟ from one end to the other.

Last but not least it was to Sam‟s to look at some boys toys, very impressively re-stored steam engines. Oh did I forget also more food. Lunch with the local members, a raffle, presentations. Back on the bus, too late for the market, straight home and to bed for a rest.

At last count everyone, even the novice, survived to see another day.

Overall this may have been only a short trip but it packed in more types of birds than one could ever wish to see, me I took the camera as I always do, ended up with over 500 photo‟s and spent the next 2 weeks sorting, fixing and generally reminiscing over a great trip.

Ron Hicks, June 2009