Working the Orchid Tree Exotics at the various bird shows and fairs I’ve noticed that there often aren’t a great number of young people in attendance. The ones who are wandering around with their parents fall into two categories; bored drag-a-longs, and enthusiastic budding aviculturists. Unfortunately the former group outnumbers the former about ten to one. It is a shame that the numbers fall this way because the future of aviculture lays in the hands of today’s children. I find encouragement in the boundless enthusiasm of the few kids who are getting involved in birds. I just wish that there were more of them.
This became crystal clear to me at a recent bird fair that we worked in Medina, Ohio. As usual we had three tables covered with merchandise; egg-foods, seed and vitamins arrayed across the tale tops. A series of large plastic storage containers filled with drinkers, dishes, nests and nesting material arranged on the floor in front of the tables.
A young couple of about thirty strolled past pushing an elderly gentleman in a wheel chair. There were a couple of youngsters racing around the chair, while the bored parents attended the crippled old man who reached out to occasionally point at some product that caught his eye. He waved a withered hand at the young woman to get her to stop the chair then pointed at some canary nests in one of the tubs. He motioned her down to him and whispered something to her in a dialect that I couldn’t understand or determine. She stood upright and turned to face me. “He wants to know how much those oranges nests are.” She said to me. I quoted the price which she relayed to the old man. He nodded, smiled and dug a wrinkled hand into his coat pocket to withdraw an ancient leather coin purse. The woman took his purse and withdrew some bills. “He wants six, please.” She said as she handed me the money. I put six nests in a bag and returned the correct change. The old man smiled, and feebly waved as she hung the bag on the chair’s handgrip and wheeled him away.
It was a bittersweet moment. I could see that the young people had no interest in the old man’s hobby which saddened me. But it touched me to see the devotion of the young folks to their grandfather. Doting over him as they wandered the show, bored and disinterested in the bird fair, but there nonetheless for grandpa’s benefit. I wonder what will happen to the old man’s birds when he can no longer care for them.
In contrast a young father and his 10 year old son stopped by the booth. “Hi. Can you help us?” he asked.
“I’ll sure try. Whatta ya need?”
“Well we just got six finches last week” dad explained as he patted his son’s shoulder. “My son and I have decided to try breeding them as our project.” The kid beamed up at me and added “Dad and I are going to work together taking care of them.”
“That’s great! It can be a lot of fun working on a project together. What kind of finches did you get?” I inquired.
“My wife works in a nursing home. They have an aviary in the lobby. They’ve had pretty good luck and ended up with more birds than they can keep. She brought home six zebra finches that were extras. We’ve had pet cockatiels in the past, but my we’ve never had finches before. We thought that it would be a good educational experience to breed the finches. My son and I can learn together on this one, because I don’t anything about breeding birds either. I guess we need some nests and stuff.”
I gathered a few necessities like hooded nests, nesting material, eggfood and vitamins. After explaining how to use the products I gave him a business card and suggested that he visit our web-site, and that of NFSS for more detailed information. He and the boy shook my hand and thanked me as they left the booth.
I wistfully watched as they walked away. It reminded me of similar scenarios from my own past. When I was 5 years old I was determined to have a pet bird despite my Mother’s objections. Dad made a deal with me that if I saved enough money from my allowance to pay for the bird, Dad would pay for the cage and supplies.
It took months to save enough for that first budgie, but eventually I had collected and hidden away enough money to pay for my first bird; “Pennies.” It took me a couple of months to figure out that I never seemed to have enough money to pay for the bird because Mom was skimming money out of the piggy bank in my room and putting it in a savings account at the bank for me. Once I figured that out I stated stashing the coins in a sock in the back of my bureau draw until I’d accumulated the necessary funds to pay for the bird.
When I was ten Dad and I worked together on another projected raising tropical fish. Those two simple acts of father and son bonding set the foundation for my career in the pet industry. So if you care about birds and their future help a youngster get started with birds.
