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lunedì 26 aprile 2010

BOLOGNA SHOW 2009 - LIZARD CANARY

BOLOGNA SHOW 2009

In early November I was invited to judge the lizard section of the 63rd concorso ornitologico held at Bologna in northern Italy. This is the largest show in Italy for posture canaries, (which we would call type canaries, here in the UK) and unlike other shows on the continent, they are judged on the British system of comparison.

The Bologna club, every year, invites top judges from Britain and the rest of Europe, to judge at their show, and the hospitality shown to their guests are unequalled.
For 2009, the entry was again around 4000 birds, and the Italian lizard canary club use it as their club show, and it regularly attracts an entry of over 200 birds from all over Italy.

The hall is a large sports centre and is well lit and spacious; the lizard entry is located at the very centre of the hall and is given pride of place amongst the exhibits. The birds are shown in a type of showcage similar to ours, the only difference being that the club supplies the show cage, not the exhibitor. Im glad I don’t get the job of cleaning out all those cages, and packing them away, ready for next year.

I was assisted, during the judging by a good team of stewards, Piero Fanfani, Dario Sironi, Gianmarco Orazi and Antonio Dardo, and my thanks go to them for a good mornings work.

The classification used is similar to the LCA one, the only differences being that there are no overyear birds shown, and all exhibitors go into the same classes, there is no difference between champions and novices.

I was asked to judge down to 4th place, which I think is a shame, many deserving exhibits were pushed out of the placings, and they should have merited a placement down to seven. The quality of the birds were excellent and I think an improvement had been made since my last visit in 2002.the classes were a pleasure to judge with the broken cap silver cocks and broken cap silver hens being particularly competitive. I progressed through the mornings work and it became clear. That judging for the final specials would be very interesting.

After finishing off the classes, I moved onto the Stamms, (or teams of four), in two classes, one for golds and one for silvers. The idea is to judge them as a team; every bird shown should be a mirror image of its team mates.
The golds were judged first and developed into a battle between a nice team of broken cap hens, every one of them showing good breastwork and lovely tight spangle, and another excellent stamm of clear cap gold cocks which were pushing the hens very hard, in the end the quality of the gold hens won through and they went on to win, not only the class, but the award for best stamm in the lizard section

The exhibitor Mr Fabio Macchioni is to be congratulated on a very well turned out Stamm,one of the best I have seen., the silvers did not have the quality of the golds

I next turned my attention to the Specials and starting with the golds, which quickly turned into tussle between a neat Clear Cap Gold Cock, a lovely Clear Cap Hen, and a nice, bold Broken Cap Cock. the hen was a superb exhibit, smart neat cap, dark sound flights, and a well defined back with excellent spangle, which never came out of alignment all through judging, it was difficult to eliminate the two cocks, but they were starting to get tired and loose their linage, the clear cap was the first to go, then the broken cap which was a bit down in colour, and in the end the gold hen proved a worthy winner, best gold in show.

Next came the Silvers, probably a more even section. A nice clear cap silver Cock, initially caught my eye, but as the judging progressed, it started to “act up” and lost its linage which was a shame as it was a big bold example.
Next came a very typy broken cap silver cock, excellent feather quality, dark flights, and a well defined back, a real showman, not a feather out of place. Pride of place from the Silver hens was a lovely clear cap, winner of one of the best classes. This bird pushed the two cocks very hard and in the end came in between them, the clear cap cock still would not settle and the silver hen could not match the broken cap cock for clarity of spangle and the cocks better feather quality, and so the broken cap silver cock came out on top, best silver in show, the hen gained some consolation by taking the award for best silver hen in show.

The best silver then went up for best lizard against the excellent gold hen, and the hen just edged by its better ground colour and sharper spangle. These were two excellent exhibits who would have held their own at our shows in the UK, had they been colour fed.

I later found out that both the winning birds were owned by the same exhibitor, a Mr P.Caianello, who I am sure must be justly proud of his achievement.

I then had to finish by picking best opp sex to the winning Gold hen, This was decided by the two broken caps, the gold was a lovely bird but a bit down in ground colour while the silver had everything and was holding up better, after some deliberation I finally chose the Broken cap Silver cock,

And so the results were;

Best in show
Best gold P.Caianiello

Best Opposite Sex P.Caianiello
Best Silver

3rd Best Lizard G.Nistico
Best Gold Cock

4th Best Lizard G.Nistico
Best Silver Hen

Best Stamm F.Macchioni
Best Gold Stamm F.Macchioni
Best Silver Stamm F.Coppelli

Looking back over the show, I noted some of the birds lacked training which meant that they did not do themselves justice when being judged .Although technical faults were few in number, some clear caps were becoming a little too long, and a few had “runs” at their edges. Very few birds had dark legs and beak, which is what the standard calls for. However taken as a whole the standard of the lizard in Italy is excellent.

My thanks go to Angelo Ronchi, judging co-ordinator, Dario Sironi and Pierro Fanfani of the Italian Lizard Canary Club, for their hospitality

John Martin

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