xchineboix

My involvement with pet bird is quite accidental.  My ex-colleague breeds too many finches and over crowded her cages.  She asked peole in office who want the free birds.  I got 2 from her.  I put them directly uner my kitchen sky light ceiling to have more sun light.  Unfortunately they died one by one 2 months later.  I was confused why it happened.

Several months after that misery, my neighbor asked me whether I would be interested in having free parakeet.  His son built a huge cage in backyard and house the birds since childhood.  But now his son had graduated and works out of state for many years.  He just tired of carrying birds for his son and wanted to get rid of them.  I was the first one to show up and picked up a special color, a blue one.  After previous failure, I decided to spend time to study more regarding my new parakeet.  I found out it is a closed family of parrot which needs to be hand-fed and trained since birth in order to have close interaction with human.  Mine is a fully grown up and too late.  In the mean time, I discovered an interesting singing bird called "Canary" and that's how it becomes my favorite bird.

Canary, 金絲雀, is famous for singing.  Canary gets its name from Canary Islands, not the islands were named after this bird.  The islands are off north coast of Africa, in line with Spain.  Actually "Canary" means "dog", nothing to do with his singing ability.  Roman empire found the islands' inhabitants bred an extremely large type of dog and named the islands "canis".  "Canis" in Latin means dog.  Years later, the islands are formally called "Canary Islands".  More than 500 years ago,  human also found these islands have many such birds in wildness and called them "Canary bird".  When exactly they became human pet bird is difficult to decide.  As far as I know, the earliest human record shows in 1800s there was a writer recorded in his writing or diary about kids owned these singing birds as entertaining pet during a harsh history period in Belgium and France border region.  Miners and factory shops adults also liked to have these birds accompany them as early detector because this bird dies very quickly if it stays in poisonous gas fume.  These birds also become national treasure of Belgium.  Belgium breeds a special kind of Canary called "Waterslager" famous for his singing quality.  I think probably it sings like beautiful water flow sound.

I also got connected to a special store, "Magnolia Bird Farm".  My neighbor told me to get the suppliers from there.  This store is better than the so called "Super Market Pet stores".  It has everything for birds and has in-depth knowledge of all kinds of birds.  It also provides free nail cutting and feather trimming service.  It was founded by bird lover, Frank Miser Sr. in 1955, more than 50 years ago.  2 years ago, stores had a 80-year birthday party for him and all cusomters were invited to have free BQQ.  He is still working at store and hires so many employees.  I figure he may not making a lot of many at all, just a true bird lover.  Here is the link to store Website.  You can see more pictures at my photo album.  Hope you enjoy my own singing canary.

http://www.magnoliabirdfarms.com/index.html