By Dennis Ison

There could well be far more chatter about the Continent over recent weeks than I could possible cover. Many fanciers have visited both the German National, on the same weekend as our Doncaster, and the 53rd VDT Show a week later at Sinsheim. It was this later show I was fortunate enough to visit with an entry 21,905 pigeons and some 3,725 poultry.

The coach trip from the north ran like a dream, so well planned by Gladys Graham, the trip alone was very enjoyable even before we reached our destination. The only two adverse comments I heard being lack of birds for sale in some breeds and the small number (188) of Saxon Colour breeds.

I will take the latter first. Sadly that part of Germany was not the hot-bed for Saxon Colour breeds, one must go further east, in fact much further east. Of the 188 entries, 41 came from Holland and the entry only had 42 adults against 146 young birds. In due course I will cover the Colour breeds and English Short Faced Tumblers under Club Notes.

Certainly there were many breeds with few or no birds for sale. The main price range was from 40 to 70 euros, about £30 to £50 each, and often the lower priced birds were the lower grade birds, not always a wise choice to found a new breed or colour. The highest priced birds I saw sold were two Tiger Swallows at about £130 each. If fanciers want particular birds of either a breed or colour, contact a proven fancier in advance of the show, they will often bring a selection to the show car park for you to see at far more modest prices. Of course if a fancier with an established stud of a particular breed wants the odd bird to improve a particular point, he or she may not think the prices unreasonable if the birds come from a noted stud.

To me one of the most interesting points was on the subject of 'backing paper'. Here some fanciers want it dropped! Well at the VDT German show they have started to use it. Perhaps they are not afraid to copy a good idea or they may have read Featherd World and heard the advantages!

This show certainly had international status, they not only had visitors from England and Scotland, but I also met fanciers from France, Holland and Russia. The group of Russian fanciers came from Siberia and had plans to take many birds back with them. Since these fanciers had flown to Germany via Moscow, there must be arilines which are not so 'anti-pigeon' as we have in Western Europe.

See the January 2005 issue of Feathered World for the cotinuation of this article