FSA March Meeting and News

Latest news from the AFF team.
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SamDavis
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Location: Douglas Park NSW

My monthly email ramble to our FSA members and friends. There's a bit of news of interest to all so thought I'd post on AFF.
If you're not an FSA member then join! Form here - http://www.finchsociety.org/_fsa/form.pdf Then we can annoy you with magazines and emails regularly.
Sam wrote:Hi everyone and welcome new members

Our March meeting is tomorrow evening 8/3/17 commencing at 7.30pm at the usual venue. Prairiewood Youth Centre 194 - 222 Restwell Rd, PRAIRIEWOOD, NSW. Everyone is welcome - members, lapsed members, guests, visitors, everyone! If you've not been before, we always have a great raffle, bag of seed lucky door prize and a well stocked sales table full of specialist finch breeder necessities, including worming and coccidia medications. New stock of split plastic rings have arrived so buy up on those.

The meeting features a presentation by Bob Wright, who accompanied Russell Kingston and a group of largely finch officiandos (many of them our members) to South America last year. We'll see Macaws, Toucans, Tanagers and much much more! Sounds like the trip of a lifetime.

I'll provide an update on the new NSW native animal licensing scheme. This is looking very positive with much less red tape likely. We welcome your feedback as the new system is designed and developed. Also a brief outline on the Vic bird sale issue - if you haven't heard, we've won!!!!

Our next major event is the Sydney Royal. In terms of the competition, Finches are the feature breed for 2017 so Ivan (Chief Show Steward) has been busy organising all the bird groups. Over 450 entries this year and all in a much larger dedicated domestic animal pavilion which adjoins the showbag pavilion. The competition is the first 2 days so 6-7th April.

The FSA, in partnership with the Avicultural Society of NSW, Col Western Sheds and Aviaries, RAS NSW and Richmond TAFE are putting together a major aviary display that will remain for the duration of the show (from April 6-19th). The theme for 2017 is Threatened Species in Aviculture. We're planning 7 aviaries dedicated to Black-throats, Gouldians, Java Sparrows, Red Siskins, Swift Parrots and Golden Shouldered Parrots as well as a mixed aviary.

Each aviary will have a 900mm by 600mm banner attached with basic details on that species (samples attached fyi). TAFE students will maintain the aviaries and also give mini-talks at each aviary throughout the day. For example, at 11am there might be a talk at the Black-throat aviary with an opportunity to ask questions (much like occurs at most zoos). RAS staff estimate something like 750,000 people will attend the show and in excess of 400,000 will come through our pavilion - so a major opportunity to promote aviculture.

The display will be largely manned by Col Western staff and Richmond TAFE animal care students but we will need volunteers to fill in a few gaps - likely evenings and public holidays (the pavilion is open from 9.30am to 8.30pm daily). Volunteers will receive free show entry for the day. Rosters are being finalised now so please get in touch if you'd like to assist. Please promote this initiative to your friends and even if you can't volunteer please drop by the display and say hello.

Our Red Strawberry recovery program is underway. We have purchased 10 pair to get things rolling and I hear a number of pairs are nesting already. We're designing the program at our committee meetings. Essentially we'll breed up numbers this year before releasing to the general membership. The committee voted unanimously to allocate up to $2000 to the program - $1350 has been spent on our foundation birds. The broad aim is to run the system along the lines of threatened species captive breeding recovery programs. This means we not only build up numbers of Red Strawbs but we also have all the paperwork done as a model to help convince government that we are competent to administer such programs.

I regret to inform members of the sad passing of Keith Gallagher. Keith was the owner of Avicultural Accessories a fantastic supporter of all bird clubs including the FSA over an extended period. Our thoughts are with Margaret, family and friends at this time. RIP Keith.

Many FSA members made the trip to Orange bird sale last weekend. What a fantastic event - the gold standard for bird sales. Over 100 at the Saturday night dinner. Thanks to Orange Bird Society for a great weekend. Highly recommended (but book your motel now). We'll be back in 2018 - 1st Saturday in March I believe.

Hope to see you tomorrow evening.

Regards,
Sam

Sam Davis
President - Finch Society of Australia
Vice President - Canary and Cage Bird Federation of Australia
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finchbreeder
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Our Red Strawberry recovery program is underway. We have purchased 10 pair to get things rolling and I hear a number of pairs are nesting already. We're designing the program at our committee meetings. Essentially we'll breed up numbers this year before releasing to the general membership. The committee voted unanimously to allocate up to $2000 to the program - $1350 has been spent on our foundation birds. The broad aim is to run the system along the lines of threatened species captive breeding recovery programs. This means we not only build up numbers of Red Strawbs but we also have all the paperwork done as a model to help convince government that we are competent to administer such programs.
Good on you and hope this goes as well as the Silverbill one did. :thumbup:
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vettepilot_6
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We are lucky to have Russell Kingston as member of our club and last meeting he gave us a review of the South American trip..very interesting and informative :thumbup:
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Shane Gowland
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Best of luck with the Red Strawberry recovery program. They are a beautiful species and I'd hate to see them die out in Australian aviculture — especially before I've had the chance to own some :roll:
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SamDavis
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Location: Douglas Park NSW

I'm told most of the FSA Red Strawb pairs are nesting now with eggs beginning to appear.
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finchbreeder
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Great news. :thumbup:
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