Members of the Spangled B.B.A. observed a Minute’s silence at the recent Spangle Day/Annual General Meeting in memory of Peter Sanderson (past President) and Dave Hobbs (committee member).

The President Janice Al-Nasser welcomed members to the meeting and thanked Swindon Budgerigar & Foreign Bird Society for hosting the meeting and congratulated them on their Golden Jubilee celebrations. Ghalib Al-Nasser, Life Vice President, conducted the proceedings of the Day on behalf of the chairman Stuart Forbes who having difficulty speaking, due to an injured jaw.

While Janice Al-Nasser was judging the show, Paul and Nikki Stannard presented a slide show and talked about their set up and how they started in the hobby. They showed slides of key birds that were part of the formation of their successful stud and some of their top winners including spangles. A Grey cock was the foundation for their Spangle family which produced a Spangle Opaline Grey Green cock that was a little narrow in the face and had poor spangled markings. However, this bird was prepotent, and produced birds far better than itself and was the grandfather of the B.S. Club Show winner. Over the years they have been very successful with Spangles on the show bench in most colours including Opaline, Cinnamon, Double Factor and Yellowface, which they particularly like. They discussed various pairings and said that they preferred to use a top quality cock bird with good feathering paired to a tighter feathered hen that was well bred. They generally found that the larger rougher feathered hens were more difficult to breed with. The main bird room is brick built with conventional wooden breeding cages and wire breeding cages. Another bird room has recently been set up to house some of the specialist and rarer varieties. The nest boxes are fixed to the outside of the cages and filled with Auboise bedding material. Attached to each cage is an automatic watering system and seed hoppers are used inside each cage. They discussed their feeding methods including the various additives they use. Members present were very interested in this aspect of their presentation.

Ghalib Al-Nasser was the second speaker and focused his talk on the history of the Spangle and the Association, breeding techniques, judging of Spangles and the various problems that are associated with present day Spangles regarding wing marking and spots. He told members that he had received new information last year from an interview conducted with Melvyn Jones of Traralgon, Victoria, Australia who established the variety in 1974 and highlighted the difference as to how the original Spangle was bred and named. This differed from the information in the Spangle Handbook. The information stated that the initial Spangle bred in 1973 was, in fact, a Single Factor Australian Yellowface Blue cock bred from an Australian Single Factor Yellowface Blue cock to a skyblue hen. Only this Spangle survived from that breeding pair and he was able to breed with it in 1974 when more Spangles were produced. Eventually the Double Factor Spangle was bred the following year.

The Spangles were brought into Europe in June 1980 by a Swiss fancier, Rolf Christen, who was living in Sydney, Australia, on a visit to his family in Switzerland. He bred with them for one breeding season, sold a few to two Swiss fanciers, one pair to Jo Mannes and the rest to Reinhard Molkentin. The Spangles arrived in the U.K. in 1981 and 1982 to the late Alf Ormerod and Doug Sadler from the Mannes and Molkentin studs.

With the aid of slides, quality Spangles were shown and faults were highlighted. Ghalib further highlighted that the Spangle is mutating again with the various varieties of spangles that are bred such as the "Danish Dominant" in Denmark, the "Cleartail" in Israel and the "Melanistic" Spangle in the U.K.