Open Day for Save The Gouldian Fund 2007.
It was a day like any other………well, actually it wasn’t as January the 21st
was the hottest day in 12 months in New South Wales and just also happened to be
the date of the second Open Day for the Fund!!
Heck, I know Gouldians come from a warm climate and I’ve even been there to
verify it, but why is it that both Open Days have set a new record for high
temperatures in NSW?!
I did look hopefully at the new air conditioners dotted about in the roof of the science block until Mike shook his head and said "I think you’re best outside taking photos in the open air this year." Has this man no pity!!
But spare a thought for poor Peter Phippen who signed up for the day no doubt with expectations of a pleasant day wandering about checking out the science behind the fight to save the Gouldian. Little did he realise that he would be press-ganged and assigned a station to spend the entire Open Day as a tour guide – yes, the Save The Gouldian Fund spares no-one in the quest to inform! Top job Peter!
Anyone who attended the day would have driven up to the gate to be checked in
by three Queenslanders, who thought they had come to enjoy the day, and the
President of the Hunter Valley Branch of the Finch Society of Australia, none
other than John Butler himself. As the co-ordinator of the day he had worked
tirelessly to arrange places for everyone and a top job he did! As his "IT
consultant" it befell me to prevent him from throwing the computer and modem out
the window every time it wouldn’t behave in an appropriate manner-an onerous
task let me tell you!!
Brian Garland made sure all the cars were left in the car park and not the dam,
but any discussion of the day would be incomplete without mention of the
fantastic job yet again undertaken by the members of the Hunter Finch Club and
the thoughtfulness of all the Hunter ladies in catering who kept up a constant
supply of ice-water soaked towels for heat affected patrons.
Woz and Mark also struck two resplendent figures slaving away over the BBQ plate
providing well-cooked meals and both must have been "mere shadows" of their
former glory after a day over the hot-plate! Mark was another who had paid to
come and ended up as a 'volunteer'. Last years visitors marvelled at the efforts
of our volunteers and this year was to prove no exception – saying thanks to
these guys never seems enough, for without their input we would not be able to
present the Open day at all! And as Mike said, what was truly remarkable was the
way they kept smiling and chuckling all day – especially Janette!!
Following the 10 o’clock welcome and opening of the day, Jan advised
everybody to buy their meal and drink tickets and Bruce Hockley swung into
action getting the visitors arranged in an ‘orderly’ fashion and proceeded to
ensure the rest of the day ran like clockwork. Woe betides anyone late for their
allocated station tour!!
A stylized tour would have gone something like this:
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From here you would have been handed over to Colin & Brett Walker who manned the Bengalese fostering room station. Various fostering techniques were discussed together with the pro and cons of fostering in general. Interestingly enough, most of our visitors were in favour of the judicious use of fostering as an avicultural tool. It was also explained that it was a very important conservational tool and that domestic Gouldians fostered under wild parents could possibly have a better chance of survival than standard breed and release techniques.●
Then it would be down to the bottom of Mike's Aussie-type finch aviaries for a grand tour of the construction and stocking of these aviaries, undertaken by David Myers. This was a chance to observe and learn about two rarely seen avicultural gems in the Beautiful and the Red-eared Firetail - and if you were fast enough, to spy them whipping about in these magnificent aviaries.●
A chance for a spot of lunch with the Hunter Finch Ladies – or in my case still more fluids! - then Bruce rounded you up and ushered you round to the verandah area for an informative talk by none other than Mike himself (hey, how come HE gets the fan-cooled verandah!!) and the perennial Russell Kingston making a welcome return to our midst in a speaking capacity!●
Russell described his new set up together with the management techniques he uses. As usual with Russell, he was a mine of information and pens were kept flying as people noted his stream of handy tips.●
Mike's talk was mainly on nutrition. A lot of the current scientific work being done on the Gouldian is on nutrition so naturally Mike has a lot of new information.He teased us all by holding votes and asking questions like:
'How many proteins do you think there are: 1, 20, or 400+? Answer- 400+ all made up from 20 amino acids!!!!!!!!!! Now did you know that?
Did you know that egg binding was more often caused by the wrong balance of calcium to phosphorous than any other reason??
And apparently, carotenoids are the things that get birds into breeding condition!
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By now your appetite had been whet for the main course – a trip through the science behind the Save The Gouldian Fund with Dr Sarah Pryke and PhD student, James Brazill-Boast.We were lucky indeed that they could fit us in for the Open Day as both are
heading out west to Wyndham (Western Australia) to begin work on another wild
Gouldian project which we are heavily involved in – but more of that later!!
Much of Sarah’s recent work is concerned with behaviour and dietary requirements
of the Gouldian finch – both of great interest to all finch keepers. Sarah
described some recent behavioural findings, including differences in dominance
among the three head forms (watch out for the aggressive red-heads!!) and the
difference among the sexes in what they consider is an attractive partner.
Sarah also demonstrated the use of a reflectance spectrometer which is used to
objectively measure the colour patches of Gouldians (including the strong
ultraviolet in their blue and violet patches - which we are all completely blind
to!) and also the new high-tech automated transponder system, which is used to
monitor birds as they go through their daily routine (e.g. during dominance,
nest building, incubating, chick feeding).
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On the nutritional front, recent recruit James Brazill-Boast spoke about some of the nutritional findings, including discussing how choosy Gouldians are about what they will eat, and how important both husking time and nutritional content is in determining their seed choice.●
Geoff Denniss – bird complex construction engineer extraordinaire was also in this section. His station was particularly enjoyed as he explained some of the unique construction methods and materials he had used in constructing the complex and its cages.●
The other science block guide was Neil Sutherland who talked about the avicultural aspects of the science programme. Different enough to raise more questions than he could answer in the time allotted!If Bruce allowed you a spare ‘minute’ it was possible to buy some raffle tickets off Donny and Pam or browse amongst the two trade tables. Our thanks must be extended to both Avicultural Accessories and Birds R Us for their input into the day and to both for taking the time to return for our second Open Day. Given the number of patrons we witnessed with their ‘show bags ‘full we guess it must have been a fair day for both!
So despite the hot weather it appeared that everyone had a great day of
information gathering and seeing for themselves what the fuss is all about!
It was great to see the number of younger aviculturists in the mix, just as the
presence of 80+ year young Les Milton makes it clear we can all learn new tricks
– hey, Les didn’t even think it was warm until after lunch!!
So as we add another $7100 to the Fund’s war chest for the wild Gouldian, all
that remains for me to do is thank everyone that made the effort to attend, for
without you our efforts would be for naught. To the volunteers from the Hunter
Club, "thanks" seems too small a word for your efforts. Our appreciation must
also be extended to the avicultural clubs who advertised our Open Day and
encouraged their members to attend.
And…………. if you have seen something on the day that makes you feel like making a
donation or organising a club fund raising event, then visit us at
www.savethegouldian.org or drop me
a line at