I started in the hobby initially because of ill health. I was serving in the RAAF, working a second job and doing other part time work, consequently my body could not take it and I had a nervous breakdown. I guess a few hours sleep per day was not enough and the battery went flat. I was basically told, after a lengthy stay in hospital, to change my lifestyle and attempt to find a relaxing hobby.

It was around this time I was asked by Bruce Patterson, a fellow RAAF member and a keen bird fancier, if I would look after his birds (canaries, budgerigars and I believe parrots and finches) whilst he was in Queensland doing a course. We were both serving in Wagga Wagga N.S.W. at the time. It was disastrous for me and I guess Bruce, as vandals broke in and let a number of his birds out, mostly canaries as I recall. In a way he was lucky as my wife rang me at work to say there were some canaries flying around the house so I hot footed it home and patched up a number of aviaries saving a lot more birds from escaping.

I guess the seeds were sown then, as I was so impressed with his budgerigars ? the colours, the size ? they were so different to what I had assumed budgerigars to be. This impression led me to a point where I needed to know how to breed these different colours thus the book 'Cult of the Budgerigar' by Watmough was purchased. I read and re read this book until the pages were near worn out, in particular the chapters on 'Colour Production' and then 'How to breed winners' and ' In-breeding'. I still find I go back to this wonderful book today just as a refresher, especially the latter two topics. (I am very impressed with the Gerald Binks book 'The Challenge', a book that should be 'up to date' for years to come. 'The All About' series by Roy Stringer and Fred Wright are also very useful).

I questioned fanciers. The late Albert Humphries of Wagga Wagga and Bruce Patterson must have got sick of me asking about things that I thought were important but were probably trivial or second nature to them. I also knew of fanciers in Kyabram, Victoria -my parent-in-laws resided there. Ray Coldwell and Bert Saunders were of particular help to me.

After about 12 months of 'researching', I purchased 3 pairs of birds from Ray and 2 pairs from Bert and returned to Wagga Wagga. I paid $5.00 each for them. I was naive enough to show 2 of these birds at Griffith in N.S.W., one, a Grey Green Cock bird won its class and eventually was runner up to the winning Cock Bird in the Show. I guess this suggested I was in the right paddock, so to speak, as far as purchasing goes. I have not shown a purchased bird since.

I left the RAAF, moved to Mount Gambier, joined their Society, paired up these few birds in the back room / office of our newly purchased house and made contact with Ray Coldwell to purchase some more birds. His asking price, I believe, was then $20.00, I thought and probably suggested to him that I only wanted to purchase budgerigars not some gold with them. How things have changed and how horribly wrong I was to question the gentleman that kick started me. He must have forgiven me as he gave me all of the books he had on budgerigars, which were many. I was able to repay him in some small way some years later by giving him a good pair when he decided to upgrade.

Geoff Smith from Adelaide, South Australia was my next stop ? there was a difference between the Victorian and the South Australian purchases, the Victorian birds were probably more stylish, where the South Australian birds were advanced in the head and spot region. The blend of these birds worked tremendously, although you would not feed them today as the advancement since importation has been that great. I was lucky enough to get Reserve Champion Cock, Reserve Champion Hen, Champion Novice, Champion Novice Opposite Sex, Reserve Novice Cock, Third Best Novice Cock and Third Best Novice Hen at the Budgerigar Society of South Australia (BSSA) Young Stock Show, there were 1100 entries. Kelwyn Kakoschke won Grand Champion and Champion Opposite Sex, this was in March of 1984, in May of the same year a record entry of 1300 birds were benched at the BSSA Annual Show with young and adult combined. Kelwyn again took the honours, a young cock bird of mine made Third Champion Cock in show plus I again achieved Champion Novice and Champion Novice Opposite Sex. This was frightening as I was promoted from Novice to Open and basically I was an apprentice at the hobby given that I paired my first birds in September of 1981.

After seeing Kelwyns birds, in particular in his aviaries, I had to make a decision. It was an easy decision, I needed to upgrade ? I sold between 50 and 70 of my birds to purchase one of his, plus I worked heaps of overtime to get a second. These birds blended in with the best of the birds I kept and gave me further success. I later purchased some birds from John Scoble, again I sold numbers and worked every bit of overtime I could, to get a couple of pairs, sight unseen. What a pleasant surprise it was when I opened the box after arrival by air. These birds were that far in front of what I had, it was ridiculous. I paired these birds together and won my first National with a Grey Green Hen in Hobart, that was in 1988. Strangely, when the Kakoschke and Scoble birds were paired together, they did not blend, but they worked okay if they were bred with their own families or were put to the progeny of the remnants of my original birds. John Tanner lent me 4 birds that were of excellent quality and they matched well with the Scoble family.

My "English" bloodlines were mainly Doug Sadler, Mick Joines and Tom Williams background, but not necessarily all were purchased directly from these gentlemen. I also purchased birds with Leo Endres, Reinhart Molkentin and Jo Mannes backgrounds. The birds with the Mannes background were purchased from various breeders throughout the UK I will cover some of these purchases for you later on. I was fortunate to be able to obtain an Opaline Light Green Cock from Frank Silva, "the fancier of the future" I believe I called him when I first met him. In fact I wrote in his visitors book in May of 1994 "What a super start ? look out everyone else". This man is so methodical, so gifted with animals that one could sense in his first years that he would be a successful exhibitor of budgerigars. He has proven me correct. I was also able to 'squeeze' a quality Dominant Pied Sky Blue Cock out of Jeff Attwood plus 'squeeze' a very good Grey cock out of Bernard Kellett. The latter two birds were UBC's or barheads. Another useful purchase was a Cinnamon Grey Cock from Fred Wright with an Attwood background. Fred offered this bird for purchase and it was initially declined. Toward the end of purchasing for various members of a syndicate, we were short of the sort of birds we were looking for and as Fred had been very helpful we decided to at least visit once more. This time the Cinnamon Grey Cock was purchased for Leon Akritidis and boy has this bird made an impact. Leon went overseas for a period of time and I paired his birds at my residence and used the birds as I pleased. This one again shone out with its progeny ? it did not matter to what it was paired something of quality emerged.

I hope I have not offended any of my UK friends by not mentioning their names, but a lot of birds were purchased for other fanciers and a lot have had success with those purchases.

I never ever did get rid of all of my 'Australian' stock as the Scoble birds and the Scoble / Tanner cross and the blend of both to 'my line' had many of the features one was looking for or were at least a good starting point.

I have purchased a couple of birds since importation, none visually attractive but genetically suitable. I find it difficult to purchase that good one, although I am extremely lucky in that I can go to a number of fanciers who have purchased birds from me over the years, grab something back that takes my fancy and split the nest, hopefully helping both parties out. Ross Loats, Leon Akritidis, Ross Grant, The Bridgeman Family, David Estreich, Rob McKie, Stephen Mow and the Podger & Ritchie partnership just to name a few. In the main, this is a two-way arrangement. Most of these guys have done well at the National level and the remainder have done very well at major shows.

This is a story in its self. I will refer to a chapter 8 of the book Genetics for Budgerigar Breeders by T.G. Taylor, M.A., Ph. D. and C. Warner. The title of the Chapter is Multiple Allelomorphs. I will short cut the chapter for way of explanation. This chapter considers a series of multiple allelomorphs that are responsible for regulating the intensity of colour on the wings and body of budgerigars. Birds of the normal Green and Blue series have black wing markings and 'full strength' body colour. It is the particular distribution of melanin pigment which determines this normal pattern. Various changes can occur in the distribution of the pigment granules, changes that result in the formation of Greywings, Clearwings and Dilutes (Whites & Yellow)[and one could slot the 'Australian' Black Eyed Self into this group]. They are caused by different mutations of one and the same gene, they thus form a series of multiple allelomorphs. These allelomorphs or alleles for short, produce the same sort of effect, i.e., a reduction in the number of pigment granules, but to differing degrees. In the Greywing and Dilutes, the reduction in melanin is uniform throughout the wings and body, but in Clearwings, the melanin in the body feathers is only slightly reduced, while that in the wing feathers is reduced to an extent similar to that observed in Dilutes. The relationship between Greywing and Clearwing is interesting in that neither one is completely dominant to the other. When a pure-breeding Clearwing is mated to a pure-breeding Greywing, all of the young are known as Full-bodied Greywing, in which the body colour is that of a Clearwing, while the intensity of wing markings is that of a Greywing. Dilute is the most recessive gene of the multiple series. Dilutes of the Green series are known as "Yellows" and those of the Blue series, as "Whites".

Australia may have created a rod for its own back by promoting / accepting and in fact standardizing the combination of two mutations / varieties. The original mutation of Greywing did not have 'Body Colour: approaching full intensity' but 50% body colour was deemed as the norm. As is previously mentioned, by combining the Clearwing with the Greywing the end result was a bird with grey wings and close to a normal body colour. I am not one for the changing of The Standard from an original mutation, the mutation should become The Standard and we should aim to keep it as pure and perfect to its origins as possible.

How do we get uniformity in judging these 'difficult' varieties? We as judges, should have, at the National level, annual workshops discussing these varieties with results of the workshop being written up and sent to each zone for distribution to all judges and the fancy in general. It is difficult if one year a 'dirty winged' Clearwing wins at the Nationals under one team of judges and the following year a similar bird is presented to another team of judges and finishes near the end of the group. It confuses the dedicated breeders of the variety, sure some of the 'new style' yellows can "meet the Standard" of say the Black Eyed self, the Standard is only a guide of perfection and faults are permitted. This relates to all varieties. I have judged what some call Yellows in a Black Eyed Self class, and, in conjunction with other judges have passed them as Black Eyes with visible faults. I might add that in the same class I have disqualified birds that were not within a bulls roar of the variety. Any way the poor exhibitor fronts up at the next show with his 'winning blackeye' only to see it disqualified.

I again reiterate, I believe a 'Judges workshop' would be a positive step in creating uniformity in judging these varieties.