Song Canaries
There are three general kinds of canaries. Within each kind is, in most cases, a multitude of different breeds. These three kinds are song, type, and colour canaries.
While you can find good songsters in any breed of canary, rarely will those bred for colour or type have the refined songs of the birds bred specifically for song.
I have discussed a few of the more popular singing breeds here, but this is by no means a complete list! But it should be enough to give you an idea of the variety available in the world of Song Canaries.
The German Roller
The German Roller Canary, originally known to many as the ‘Hartz Mountain Roller’, is the bird most people think of when they speak of a singing canary.
This is one of the older and best-known of the distinct breeds of canaries, having been in development for hundreds of years. Its history goes back almost to the beginning of canary keeping, and it has a quiet, refined song, singing with the beak almost fully closed.
These birds are trained to sing on cue for shows, but this does not mean that they require training in order to sing at all, as some people seem to think.
All canaries sing naturally. Training can help refine the sound of the song to a certain extent, as some tend (to varying degrees) to mimic sounds they hear nearby, particularly other bird songs. Training will also help to teach the canary to sing when it is expected of him, but it does not teach him how to sing – he knew that already.
A few breeders worked on developing red German Rollers some years back, but so far none of these attempts seem to have been successful at producing red or bronze roller canaries with a pure song for the breed.
In general, orange or bronze colouring should not occur in any of the song breeds – if it does, it usually means one of two things, sometimes both; either the bird is not purebred, or it has been artificially colourfed.
Some fanciers of the German Roller endorse feeding a diet rich in oily seeds, such as canola. This is said to improve the song.
What it actually does is coat the syrinx (the canary’s voice box) with a layer of fat, which mellows the sound of the tones the bird is able to emit. The fact that such a diet renders a canary susceptible to heart and liver disease is not usually taken into consideration, nor is the fact that such a practice can help mask song faults which would otherwise be very noticeable.
In my experience, it is not necessary to feed a well bred song canary such a diet to hear beautiful songs, and I recommend that anybody wanting to buy a roller canary should make a point of inquiring about the exact diet the bird has been receiving, before considering buying it.
The Waterslager Canary
Waterslager canaries, like most of the other song-breed canaries, are another old breed. They originated in Belgium, where records indicated their presence as early as the 1733, when a French traveller noted the beauty of the songs emitted by the otherwise rather plain-looking little yellow canaries raised by people living in the town of Mechelen, which the French called Malinois. This is why you will sometimes, to this day, still find the Waterslager being referred to as a ‘Malinois’ canary.
Waterslagers were bred for the ‘water’ sounds of their songs, rather than the ‘rolls’ typified by the German Rollers. This trait led to the name they are most commonly known by, ‘Waterslager’, from the Flemish term ‘waterslag’, meaning, ‘water sounds’.
Rumour has it that this unique song was taught to the ancestors of the breed through ‘tutoring’ the young canaries by allowing them to listen to a nightingale, in order to encourage their canaries to mimic this bird’s bubbling, cheerful song. This seems a little unlikely though, since nightingales rarely sing during the day, when canaries are awake and listening, but prefer to sing only during the night, when canaries are invariably asleep.
Whatever the origin of the Waterslagers’ unique songs, scientists have recently discovered an interesting fact, that they suspect may have something to do with the songs this breed produces – it seems that this breed has a genetically inherited difference from all other breeds of canaries. Their inner ear lacks certain sensory hairs found in all other canary breeds, which means that these birds are capable of hearing (or not hearing) a different range of sounds than other breeds of canaries.
You will never see a dark Waterslager canary – they don’t exist. It is rare to see even a small tick on one of these birds, and some people say that such a tick is an indication of impure blood.
Most Waterslagers are pure yellow, with an occasional white bird occurring. Red or orange should never be seen, and if they are, will indicate that the bird cannot be purebred.
White Waterslagers are more often considered acceptable, and yet visit a show and you will find groups of fanciers engaged in intense discussions over whether white birds should be allowed to be shown on an equal basis as the yellows, it being argued that the white is a mutation from the original yellow stock, and therefore not pure.
The American Singer Canary
This breed is one of the three breeds of canary developed in the United States, the others being the American Hartz Canary and the Columbus Fancy. The American Singer Canary as we know it today descended from a planned cross between the Roller Canary and the Border Canary as it existed earlier in the 20th century.
The goal was to achieve a bird with the bright active personality and freely offered song of the Border Canary, but with the overly loud, often harsh song of the Border modified by the singing skills bred for so long into the German Roller.
The result is a bird who sings more loudly than a Roller, but nowhere near as loud as it’s Border ancestors. The American Singer should and usually does display the Border’s renowned habit of being very free with its song, offering its songs willingly and frequently.
American Singers are known to be very inventive little birds, who have a much stronger ability than most canary breeds to mimic sounds they hear in their environment. This means that breeders and affecionados of the American Singer need to be rather careful just what their birds hear; if any member of the flock decides they like a certain sound, they are liable to keep repeating it, and teach it to the whole flock!
When this happens, it is known as ‘song contamination’ – except in the case where the added sound enhances rather than detracts from the overall quality of the song.
The way American Singer Canaries are judged at shows reflects this philospohy, and has led to some fanciers of the older song breeds (who are judged much less freely) to be heard to state the opinion that the American Singer is not a ‘real’ singing canary, because the birds are not judged by a set of fixed standards, but are instead rated on the variety, freedom, and pleasantness to the ear of each songster’s tunes.
Occasionally you will find a seller who believes that, because they are situated in America, they have the right to term any singing canary as an ‘American Singer’, due apparently only to their geographic location, and because the bird sings!
This is a rather blatant invention, and the truth is, that if a bird is going to be sold as an American Singer, it should be wearing the certified American Singer closed bands, marked with the club’s initials, on its leg. These bands are registered with and obtainable only through the AS clubs, and must be put on when the chicks are still in the nest, helping to serve as proof of the lineage of the bird.
Further, the American Singer Club is incorporated, and that means that any seller incorrectly using this terminology to describe their birds is actually conducting business illegally!
What it comes down to is that an canary not close-banded with the proper leg rings – no matter what its lineage – may not legally be called an American Singer.
The Timbrado Canary
Although new to most of the world, the Timbrado has a long history in the land of its origin, Spain, where it was known for centuries as the ‘Canary of the Country’. The Spanish breeders who developed this breed kept only two goals in mind, that the bird’s song must be attractive and freely offered, and that no use must be made of other songbirds, whether other breeds or other species, either in breeding or in song training.
Instead, the songs considered the most desirable were fixed to the repertoire of the breed through strict selection of the breeding stock.
The Spanish Timbrado is similar in appearance to the wild canary, but tends to be a little larger. In principle, all colours are accepted in the Timbrado, however, it should be stressed that the pure bloodlines of the Timbrado do not include the Red Factor, which derives from the South American Red Siskin.
Beware when looking to buy a Timbrado, of people who will try to take advantage of its rarity by trying to sell you any dark-coloured canary as a Timbrado, which will usually sell for a much higher price than a bird of a more ordinary breed.
The Timbrado’s song is often called ‘metallic’, being freely offered, bright and cheery, full of bell tones. A good songster will have a great richness and variety in his songs, a trait the breed is famous for.
This canary was not officially recognized as a breed until 1962, when, after several failed attempts, the breed was finally recognized during the celebrated General Convention in Brussels. This was a triumph to many Spanish breeders, to whom it represented the first great honor of Spanish canary keeping.
The Russian Canary
This breed has reportedly been in existance for more than three hundred years, but suffered severe declines through the political climates of the last century or so in its homeland.
Nonetheless, the breed persisted here and there, due mostly to the efforts of the people who loved them and were unable to give them up, despite the label given this canary as being a symbol of everything bourgeois.
Although they kept the breed alive, it is still in a state of severe decline, with few dedicated fanciers remaining.
Ironically, at the same time it has recently begun to gain more notice throughout the world for the uniqueness of its song, known in its homeland as ‘ovsyanochnevo’. Very few people know much about this unique and historic canary, but recently a society was created to support and educate interested fanciers, as well as planning contests, creating record libraries, etc, so it is hoped that in the future more will be heard of this unique and most interesting breed of song canary.
The Future of Song Canaries
Raising and training song canaries requires dedication, skill, and much time. The art of training canaries in the delivery of their song is a long and involved process, requiring not only interest and a natural talent and ability for working with birds, but also specific skills developed laboriously through much practice, along with a good ear; not to mention a fairly hefty material investment in equipment and other related costs!
In these days of fast food, fast travel, and fast living, such arts tend to drop by the wayside, and few ever seem to realize what is being lost until it is already gone. Will our beloved song canaries, who left their mark on so many ears, take the same route, in the end? Or will there be enough interested and dedicated fanciers to maintain their presence in an ever-more-rapidly changing world?
Only time will tell – time, and our own efforts.
by R. C. ‘Robirda’ McDonald,Originally published in Flock Talk 74.Copyright © June, 2003. All rights reserved
