School visit tomorrow

[mr.fox]

I'm scared. I have got our local years 5-6 primary school kids coming to view my aviary birds tomorrow morning. I foolishly said yes to it months ago, but now 10 kids have turned into 18, then 22 + parents. Too late now. Anyway, this is all part of their environmentel studies or whatever they call it these days. My girlfriend is a teacher at the school, so that's how I got roped in. I've been practicing my lines and spent the afternoon tidying up the aviaries (all 17 of them). All looking ship shape and ready for the little buggers.
I keep having to remind myself that I was probably one of those little buggers 25 odd years ago and that visiting someone's aviaries got me started.
Wish me luck.

[vettepilot_6]

Good on you...the future of our hobby rests with you BAHAHHA no seriously wish you well

Sounds like me years ago when missus and I had a fully loaded Greyhound Bus pull up in our little Avenue...and all these unknown people come wandering into our yard lol

[matcho]

22 + parents?

I can guarantee that you will have more interest from the parents in regards to the keeping of birds than the kids. Their attention span is somewhat limited. I think you may be surprised as to how much contact from the parents might be on the pretext that little Jimmy or Molly wants birds. Good luck to you, your will be spreading the word!

cheers

Matcho

[Jayburd]

Mind you, some of us are interested since long before primary
Hope to goes well for you,

[Canary]

Good work and best of luck.

I can remember as a kid of about 12 years old, in the small country town of 2,000 that I was from, I knew every aviary in the town. I must have annoyed the crap out of most of those people. It didn't matter whether they had canaries, finches, budgies, pigeons or parrots, if I could ride there I just wanted to see their birds.

I am sure the kids will only be seeing the birds.

Let us know how it goes.

[matcho]

Jay,
I agree with your thoughts on that. That was then, in my case 50 yrs ago. In your case, I don't know, but in the last 10 or 15 years if it is not in the bedroom on the screen or phone it doesn't seem to exist unless you have parents that point you in the right direction or you are a really special kid. Sadly, it seems to me that for the majority of kids this is not the case. Books to me were the be all and end all, especially about animals, birds etc. Still have some of them, totally outdated, but bring back fond memories.

just my thoughts.

Matcho.

[elferoz777]

Just put out a bowl of lollies or biscuits..that usually works on my son when we go to aviary visits.

Hopefully you will concert some of them into finch keepers

Good work

El Feroz

[Jayburd]

Agreed Matcho.
I've only been in it for seven years, three of which was a pair of Zebs in the front room. I try and keep as many books around me as possible - but I am an admitted owner of several screened devices - if I wasn't, I'd not be posting this now.Another thing is that in some cases a screen device can come in very handy for the bird observer - I was recently given an app for my birthday that is an electronic copy of a well respected Aussie bird field guide. Fantastic for carrying in your pocket, and as an added bonus, it has over 2000 bird calls, so you can identify birds by call as well as sight.

But in general, you have a very good point. As an accumulator of magazines, the oldest I have is Birdkeeper volume one issue one, which is I don't even know how old. But I find the information, outdated or not, to be very interesting and useful.

With any luck some of these kids will grow up to be our new Kingston and Fidlers

[GregH]

I think this is great and I wished more schools would take an interest in developing nurturing skills. Good luck tomorrow and I do hope you convert a few of them.

[SamDavis]

Great idea and I'm sure it will go well and be popular with parents and kids. When I was kid we had my local primary school visit our backyard zoo each year.