By implication the title requires a retrospective assessment of what we do now to what we did in the past.

Judging has always and will always be an individuals assessment of how they rate the bird's they are comparing. The bottom line of any show is finding the bird that comes closest to resembling the ideal.

This has over the years seen great differences of opinion amongst judges with some preferring the smaller, typy yellow feathered exhibits while others have preferred big buff untidy birds. This was I believe a problem for many years and the cause of unhappiness amongst exhibitors.

Over the last few years the judges have been involved in many discussion groups and seminars in order not to suppress their individualism but to interpret as a group what the ideal budgerigar looks like and judge accordingly.

I believe we have come a long way in achieving this and I hear very little unhappiness regarding judges picking birds from the two extremes.

Various measures have been introduced over the years to help judges when a decision needs to be made regarding measurable faults such as flecking, missing tail or flight feathers! These measures became necessary because of extreme variations applied by different judges. Again inconsistency and frustration to the exhibitor.

Pictures were introduced to cover flecking and numbers stipulated to cover missing feathers. Not everyone has been in agreement with the new measures but they at least know exactly where they stand. This is a debatable topic for another time and is mentioned here in order to illustrate the measures taken by the judges to allow exhibitors to understand and accept the parameters within which a judge operates.

The measures taken plus the seminars and discussions over the years have I believe, greatly reduced the absolute annoyance and confusion exhibitors used to feel and often expressed when judging was erratic.