Compliments of the USTF, an organization of which I am a proud member!

A Very Brief History of the Spanish Timbrado Song Canary

There is some evidence that the wild canaries were used as captive cage birds on the Canary Islands long before they were exported to Spain and eventually from there to the rest of Europe, and it was as singing cage birds that the Spanish first encountered them after they took over the islands in the 1470’s. The exported birds may have started as sailor’s curiosities which were brought back to the Spanish mainland as individual singing males, but they soon caught the eye of Spanish aristocrats and wealthy merchants who were anxious to acquire the birds and willing to pay more money than the sailors could earn in any other way. Eventually a brisk trade grew, and canaries were included among the exotic luxuries which were being imported on Spanish treasure ships from a growing Spanish empire.

According to the romantic stories about canaries which are reprinted in many canary books, Spanish conventos and monasteries were the first to crack the problem of breeding the canary in captivity and that the breakthrough was due to the dedication of the members of the religious houses of Spain who already made good incomes for their houses by raising sheep and other livestock. Those who speak of this story usually emphasize the imagery of the friars’ and monks’ chants being beautifully blended with the songs of their birds in a sort of concert which is both natural and divine. According to the story, the secret of breeding canaries was kept within the walls of these houses at first and then within the borders of Spain. Whether this is true or not, there is some evidence that the Spaniards did try to keep canary hens from being exported by royal edict and saw the birds as a crown monopoly and source of revenue for the government.

According to one line of thought, whether it took place in a private home or behind monastery walls as legend would have it, the first clutch of eggs to be hatched in Spain is a very significant event for timbrado aficionados because this first brood of young canaries must be considered the first timbrados, even though the name would not be invented for hundreds of years!

The popularity of the canary as a songbird among the nobles of Spain, where they are said to have been carried about by liveried servants in golden cages, also spread to places like Italy, Germany, France, the Low Countries, and eventually England.

While in Germany and the Low Countries deeper voiced birds which would eventually become rollers and waterslagers where being developed and in France and England the color, feather texture, posture, and shape of canaries were emphasized, in Spain the breeders quietly went about the business of selecting the best singers of the song that they had originally fallen in love with.

What little that is known about Spanish canariculture during the almost 400 years between the first decades of the 16th century and the last decades of the 19th century is due mainly to surmise. With the exception of a few small and relatively insignificant mutations (cinnamon, dominant white, crests), the canaries of Spain went on, year after year, much as they had been on their native islands. The breeders’ selection goal seems to have been to preserve the magical sound of the wild bird as nearly as possible. Today there are many places on the internet where one may hear the song of the wild canary and, although it varies from area to area, the major characteristics may be described as varied, bright, somewhat metallic (although both hollow and watery notes can be present), and remarkably complex. No wonder the desire was to preserve it.

In the 19th century a craze for greater size swept the canary world and not even the Spanish breeders were exempt. Some breeders crossed in frilled canaries in order to lengthen the small Spanish songbirds. This was a tragedy as far as the voice of the birds was concerned, a tragedy which some misguided breeders attempted to correct by crossbreeding with rollers. Much of the style of the diminutive and bright voiced little birds that had been beloved in Spain was lost. However, in some areas of Spain certain courageous breeders continued to resist the fashions of the day and kept their birds pure.

In the early 20th century a group of breeders began to cross their birds back to wild birds from the Canary Islands in order to recapture the original voice of the Spanish song canary and, although much of their work was lost due to the Spanish Civil War which began in the 1930’s, their example is still followed by many Spanish breeders today.

Due to the events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries described above, today timbrados can be found in three voice styles: the clasicos, which include many rolls in high, medium, and deep pitch in their song; the discontinuos, which are said to go back to those canaries which where never crossed to rollers or frills and which have very few or no rolls in their song; and the intermedios, which fall anywhere between the two.



A History of Timbrados in the US and USTF

The Spanish timbrados of the United States have their own short but twisted history. Although a few unappreciated specimens of the Spanish timbrado may have made it into the United States in the mid 1980’s, it wasn’t really until the early 1990’s that good birds and good information about them began to be available. The first real pioneer on the American timbrado scene was Alberto Berríos who founded the Spanish Timbrado Society of America based on the practices and score card of the FOE of Spain. The FOE held that only the continuous style or clasico birds should be considered true timbrados, while the FOCDE, the far larger organization in Spain, embraced the discontinuous style singers as well, which were traditional to many parts of Spain including lines from places like Vich. The Spanish Timbrado Society of America (STSA) was established in 1998, and its stated goal was to educate the public about the keeping, breeding, and training of the Spanish timbrado. However, all this was coupled with the desire to promote only the clasico style song and information about what constitutes a good song on the FOE score sheet. The STSA was the club that introduced the Spanish timbrado as a separate division of the National Cage Bird Show at that organization’s 52nd meet which occurred in Puerto Rico in 2000. The founders of United Spanish Timbrado Fanciers (USTF) were part of the early effort to promote the timbrado in the United States as leaders in the STSA. All of the original USTF Board members, Patricia Last, Stephen Slates, Pamela Cale, Nella Hurtado, Eduardo Hurtado DVM, Daniel McKeever, and Patricia Roberts, had previously held offices or leadership roles in STSA.

Also in 1998, in southern California, another group of breeders got together to form the American Association of Spanish Timbrado Breeders (AASTB) after their recent importation of a shipment of timbrados directly from Spain. Bea and Jack Fout had been raising timbrados since 1993, but with this importation, they and the small group decided it was time to begin a formal organization. This organization would take its inspiration from Spain’s FOCDE and use that federation’s score sheet.

These two organizations went on in tandem with little interaction, and certainly no cooperation, for a number of years although the birds being exhibited at their contests were all virtually the same at that point. It wasn’t until the end of 2001 that 72 birds of floreado lines (their descendents are discontinuous to intermediate in style) were imported.

By the time of the National Cage Bird Show held in Santa Clara, California in 2002, the group of members of the STSA named above had become dissatisfied with the narrow view of the FOE score sheet as well as of some of the organizational aspects of the club, including what was perceived as an attitude of divisiveness. As a result of that, United Spanish Timbrado Fanciers came into being.

According to founding president, Patricia Last:

“Whether as breeders, striving for excellence in producing consistently high scoring competitive birds, or as seekers of the cheerful companion that brightens our lives with his beautiful song, one thing is clear: we need a united force, which has only the best interest of this unique and wonderful variety in mind. Especially in the United States and the Americas, we need a venue for the respectful exchange of information, new ideas, and the promotion of the Spanish Timbrado. If we are to grow and thrive, we must set aside politics and personal issues and put the Spanish Timbrado Fancy first!”

At one point USTF hoped to be the club of middle ground, inclusive of the spirit of both the FOCDE and FOE, and hoped to settle some of the disputes that were beginning to arise among American timbradistas, as timbrado breeders are sometimes called, as to what should be considered the ideal song and the ideal philosophy behind this song. In Spain, the FOCDE was forced to act as a sort of midwife to the compromises required to create a single song code for all its members, those who bred clasicos, those who bred discontinuos, and those who bred everything in between! How could anyone hope to reconcile the even wider differences between the followers of the FOCDE and the FOE here in America? It seemed an impossible task.

Yet, this is what United Spanish Timbrado Fanciers has wished to see from its inception. Originally, the USTF Board members proposed a third score sheet, developed by Dr. Hurtado after many conversations with Timbrado breeders internationally, which was intended to fall somewhere between that of the FOCDE and that of the FOE, but it soon became apparent that this plan was doomed to fail because USTF was informed in no uncertain terms that neither club would send its judges to evaluate birds in the US using anything other than its own club score sheet. At this point, USTF was left with no other alternative than to select one of the two sets of criteria already established by the respective clubs. The selection was based in part on the notion of inclusivity which USTF had already espoused in its desire to have a completely unified set of criteria of judgment for all three song styles. For this reason USTF selected the score sheet of the FOCDE which allows a wider range of talented birds to succeed as timbrados.

There is no denying that the birth of USTF was painful, especially in its early days. The new organization had to start from scratch with only the talents, insights, and determination of its founders to rely on. This new beginning caused not only a sense of hope but also some anxiety and even frustration on the part of the first leaders: most beginnings are like that.

Today USTF is the most active of the US timbrado organizations, at least in one sense, holding three song contests (in Texas, Oklahoma, and California) in 2006. The USTF board is interested in talking to timbrado breeders and local bird clubs around the country about expanding the number of contests even further. Our long term goal would be to have at least one contest in each region of the country so that more and more breeders would have access to the expert opinions of trained judges in order to help them with selection and breeding decisions which will improve the songs of their lines: clasico, discontinuo, or intermedio.