So I decided to look into the Finch Club option. I first inquired with Rob Jakovljevic, the owner of an excellent bird dealership Ace Colony Aviaries in Wentworthville Sydney ((02) 96350598). I had been visiting there many times and he always has an excellent variety of finches and of course Bengos. He has continually proven himself to be a wealth of knowledge and always happy to help and convey his passion for birds. Even Rob despite his high turnover of finches rarely sees any Self Bengos come through his aviaries, he said to me that it had been a few years since he has had one there. Rob put me onto a newspaper that had a listing for all of the registered bird clubs in Australia so with this in my hot little hands I looked through to find something relevant for me here in Sydney. Let me say right now, that no matter who I called from that list of contacts every person I spoke to was very friendly and extremely forthcoming and also anyone that I was referred to call and speak with were also very accommodating. This in itself was totally refreshing in the rat race of Sydney where it is by nature a "survival of the fittest" city, it was nice to find a natural ease with people to chat Finches.I have to admit I rang a lot of people...."a lot of people" to try and find the Self Bengalese with not much success. Generally, people that are in the exotic finch breeding clubs like the Finch Society of Australia (which I have since joined) do not have a particular interest in Bengalese other than for fostering other finches so their appearance is not particularly important and from ringing around within this club and its associates there was not anyone who kept the Self Bengos. I had exhausted my avenues locally on the phone with much disappointment and I would have to wait to visit the Finch Society of Australia at my first meeting. I had been made a suggestion by a few of the people that I spoke with, and that was "if you are interested in good quality Bengos then you should approach the show guys" and with this I was told that people within the finch showing scene concentrate more on breeds like the Bengalese for breeding colour and quality.
Following this I rang the Finch Exhibitors Club in Sydney, not really knowing who they were I was told that the club exhibits Australian Finches, Foreign Finches, Hybrid Finches and Bengalese Finches. Through Gordon the club contact I was told that the key person that concentrates on Bengalese is a particular man named Les but he only breeds pied Bengos. Through all of my inquiries over recent times I have been told time and time again by numerous different people that Les is the leader in breeding the "best" show quality Bengalese and dominates the show scene with his pied Bengos here in Sydney and arguably throughout Australia. This was sounding promising!!! I rang him and he told me that he doesn't keep Selfs.....BOOOO! the only person that he knows who keeps the self Bengalese is a man named Bruce who lives near Newcastle,
I rang Bruce and he was very helpful. Bruce said to me that he had some Self Chocolates and Gingers (Fawns)....Whooo Whooo!!! And there it was, a win! I found someone!!!
Bruce sent me a couple of pics of his Self Bengos seen here. You can notice straight away the stockier form of the bird and the larger size than the common "Pet Shop" Bengo. The show term for the general form or shape of a Bengalese is called the "Type". Both of these aspects of Size and Type are very important for showing the Bengalese Manikin competitively and from my recent experience makes for a very attractive Bengo.
Bruce told me that he would not have any spare birds until the new year of 2012 so at that stage any immediate ideas of getting my Selfs was still on hold.