Greenfinch Maestros

Greenfinches run in the family for MARK JONES, who here looks back over the influential breeder/showmen who shaped the exhibition bird – and salutes the top exponents of today.

- Mark Jones

I WAS born in 1960 and for as long as I can remember my father Walter kept British hardbills, mules and hybrids, along with a few canaries for the production of mules.

My first memory of a bird show takes me back to Llandudno CBS in the mid-1960s, when I was first attracted to the diminutive foreign seedeaters for their colour and size.

At about that time, my father and I would borrow my grandfather’s car once or twice a year to travel across to the Isle of Anglesey. We travelled to the middle of the Isle to a place called Llanerch-ymedd. Approximately one mile beyond down a country lane and across the road from a dairy farm was a small cottage. There lived Alf Williams, who is widely acclaimed as being responsible for commencing the strain of greenfinches that we see on the show bench today. He lived there along with his dear wife Sally and son Mervyn.

I found the house to be quite relaxing, dimly lit with small windows. I believe that the fire was used to do most of the cooking. In the corner were a television, a few cups, and some photos of birds and fanciers. Alongside the cottage and to the left was a large area used for growing vegetables. At the far end was a hawthorn hedge, beneath which was the toilet. This was also the area where Alf kept his birds.

The set-up was very small with no more than a small shed or two and some small flights. Alf kept a few birds; greenfinches, obviously, and I can remember a few goldfinches. Of the greenfinches then he probably bred no more than a dozen youngsters each year. He would stop breeding when he had the number that he required.