HOW WE APPRECIATE SONGBIRDS HERE

In my country, the most popular species of songbirds kept are the oriental white eye, the red-whiskered bulbul, the white-rumped shama, the zebra dove and the hwamei. The main focus of our hobbyists of these species is on the abilities of male birds to perform well both at home and in gatherings, the latter having a very much higher priority. In this sense, it is almost taken as a sport, where the goal is to be able to do well at organised competitions or at casual gatherings.

The basic singing skills of a male song bird becomes almost unimportant if it cannot exhibit this in the presence of other male birds of the same species in the arenas. The worth of a songster lies not only in its ability to sing well but also in its showmanship, its physique, its stamina, its courage and willingness to perform, outside of its homeground and under the most intimidating and unnatural environment, packed with other male birds of the same species, sometimes numbering by the hundreds. An uninitiated wild bird watcher taken to the arena for the first time could just be amazed at the abilities of some of our better captive performers to defy the limits set by their wild cousins that he had witnessed in their natural environments. To achieve this, the ways songbirds here are chosen, kept and trained are quite different from those of the conventional western hobbyists. In some ways, the differences in appreciation and approach to the hobby is quite comparable to the differences between those of raising chickens for the fighting pit and raising chickens for the table.