John
Monkstalks to John Evans
John Monks is a budgerigar fancier dedicated to the improvement of our variety. He lives in Connahs Quay, Flintshire, North Wales, which is convenient for me as whenever I visit my relatives in nearby Buckley I can be pestering him within a few minutes. I enjoy the visits and we usually spend an hour or two each time talking Clearwings and putting the world to rights.
My great pleasure is in seeing what can be achieved by careful selective line breeding applied over many years and the visits reinforce my own beliefs about how Clearwings should look. Some of the Yellow-wing Dark Greens have the brightest clear buttercup-yellow wings I have ever seen and the contrast against the solid dark green is quite startling. It has also been a great pleasure to see two of my favourite birds alive and well although not breeding now. One is the Violet Cobalt Whitewing cock which won the breeder CC the 1993 Club Show and which was pictured in the Budgerigar of January 1994 and the other his 1994 sister, the Violet Cobalt Whitewing hen pictured in All About Specialist Variety Budgerigars by Roy Stringer and Fred Wright. The picture above is of a typical Monks bird - the dirty face showing it has just come out of the breeding cage.
John says that he got into budgies by accident. He was into racing pigeons and as his son was showing interest in wildlife and birds in particular, in 1975 John built him an aviary and stocked it with a few budgies as a birthday surprise. The surprise backfired as his son showed no interest in the birds and so John was lumbered with them. He soon developed an interest however and, luckily for us, this interest crystallised on a pair of Clearwings that were among the original birds. By 1977 he had decided that Clearwings offered more of a challenge than the other varieties and started to specialise.
His initial better quality stock came from Stan Evans of Birkenhead whose birds he admired. At a show some time later he saw some Dennis Silver birds and thought that they could offer improvement to his own birds - particularly in length - and so introduced Silver birds into his line. The birds from these two breeders formed the lines that John has been successful with ever since. He is a modest man and can't remember how many Best Clearwing awards he has won at Area and Championship shows. When pressed he did recall winning five times at the BS Club Show with five different birds and winning three times at each of Budgerigar World show and the BS Convention. (Since then he has won again at the 1998 BS Club Show with the bird that won the previous year).
John's aviary set-up is fairly conventional. It has two outside flights connected to inside flights at the right and left extremes of an 18 feet long by 6 feet wide birdroom in a "6" shape. Along the back wall and facing the windows, which are opening and stretch the full length of the wall, he has 24 breeding cages each 2 feet wide, 18 inches high and 16 inches deep. These convert into 8 feet long stock cages when the slides are removed. John considers the outside flights essential in conditioning birds and the window arrangement ensures that ventilation is good. There is a working surface under the windows with built in storage space for seed bins etc. Artificial light is used to extend the day only during the breeding season that is usually December to April, and heating is thermostatically controlled to come on only when the temperature falls below 50oF.
The following questions were put to John to try and get answers that might help enthusiasts to appreciate what it involves to get to the top with Clearwings and to point them in the right direction.
Why Clearwings?
I deliberately took up the variety because I was attracted to their bright colours and contrast and they seemed to offer the potential of a long-term challenge to breed bigger and better Clearwings. I feel that if I kept other varieties as well it would dilute the effort and concentration that I can put into the one variety. I prefer the brightness and contrast of Yellow-wing Dark Greens to other colours and find them easier to breed to standard but I also breed other Yellow-wings and Whitewings.
How many birds do you keep?
I aim to pair up 24 pairs each year and keep back another 30 or so as replacements and to generate the noisy environment that encourages breeding. Most of these are single-factor Clearwings with a few double-factors and a few Dilutes. Of these about 30 will be Yellow-wing Dark Greens, 20 or so Whitewing Skyblues, Cobalts and Violets and the balance made up of Yellow-wing Light Greens and Dilutes. From these I aim to breed 100 or so in two rounds and I try to have finished with the breeding cages by May.
Do you think any other varieties can help improve Clearwings?
For many years the only other variety that I have used is Dilute (Yellows and Whites) which are genetically similar but recessive to Clearwings. By using Dilutes with desirable qualities I can improve Clearwings in one generation by pairing a double-factor Clearwing to a Dilute. Double-factor Clearwings are nearly always darker in body colour and dirtier in the wing and flights than single-factors and pairing them to Dilutes cleans up the wings and flights without washing out the body colour.
I did use a Normal outcross recently, a young hen, and you have written about the progress (or lack of it) that I made. The one very promising hen in the second generation, which had surprisingly clear wings, produced nothing but problems - but that could have been just normal bad luck and it might have turned out differently. I have shown you a couple of split Clearwings that are my special project for next year but you’re not allowed to mention them (so I won’t!).
Although there are some excellent Grey Greens and Greys around which could improve the general budgerigar qualities, they do nothing for the body colour and it is very rare for a Clearwing carrying the grey factor to win at shows.
I have bought very few outcrosses but I do occasionally swap birds with Clearwing breeders who are successful at shows. I wouldn't bring in a Dilute cock from a someone who doesn't breed Clearwings as it could be split for Cinnamon, Opaline or Ino and the wastage could mess up my breeding programme. If I am going to bring in an outcross I prefer it to be a current year hen.
What pairings do you advise to produce the best Clearwings?
My general rule is to pair best Clearwing to best Clearwing irrespective of colour (but subject to what follows). This has served me well for more than twenty years as my birds have continuously improved over this period.
What are your views on line breeding?
I think it is the only way to make consistent progress but it does involve discipline. Accurate and complete record keeping is essential if you’re going to develop successful lines and ruthless culling is also required as the doubling up of good qualities also results in the doubling up of the bad. The closest pairing I have used is half-brother to half-sister.
Have you any advice for someone starting with Clearwings?
I suggest that two pairs of Clearwings should be obtained from each of two successful Clearwing specialists (avoiding Grey, Cinnamon, Opaline and Ino). Pair the birds from the first breeder together and do the same with those from the second breeder. Follow the advice given by the breeders on which birds to put together as the breeders should know the background of the birds and the potential of the pairings. The first year will give you a reasonable pool of birds from which to select your second year pairings and in the second year you can cross the lines together, hopefully achieving better quality. By selecting and retaining the best you should be able to make progress in both lines and should you need an outcross, your first year’s youngsters should give you an indication of where the better birds are coming from. I wouldn't worry too much about colours and colour combinations until some experience has been obtained with the variety.
Is there anything that you don’t like about Clearwings?
My main moans are not about the Clearwings themselves but about judging. I restrict my showing to a few large shows and some of the local events every year. I find it annoying that I have to try and find out the preferences of judges in order to select birds that will stand the best chance of winning according to those preferences. Any serious Clearwing breeder must, because of the very nature of the variety, concentrate on depth of body colour combined with clarity of wing in order to give the required contrast. At the same time the breeder will be trying to maintain and improve size. Despite these efforts, some judges will judge a class of Clearwings based upon size only, so to win in front of those judges you must enter your biggest bird irrespective of colour and wing clarity. Other judges are known to like the spots trimmed - despite the standard requiring no spots! Yet another judge, when asked why one particular bird was preferred over another, explained that it had better wing markings - unbelievable but true.
These examples demonstrate not only how difficult it can be for the Clearwing exhibitor but also how difficult it is for the dedicated breeder to concentrate on the essential qualities of the Clearwing. It is easier to breed big birds with poor Clearwing qualities than good birds with excellent Clearwing qualities and there is evidence at most shows that even serious breeders are being influenced by the need to show big birds if they want to win. If the trend continues, the inevitable conclusion will be that the very qualities that make the Clearwing such an attractive bird will be lost. We must keep trying to educate judges about those qualities that go to make up a good Clearwing and why the best Clearwings are worthy of a place in the final line-up.
It does sometimes happen - I was awarded Best Young Bird at the Merseyside Classic and Best Opposite Sex at Clwyd so perhaps there are some judges around who appreciate a good Clearwing.
(I regret to say that John has now disposed of his birds due to ill health but is hoping that he might be able to start up again in the future. John Evans 15th March 2001)