John Lewis has been involved with birds for a great part of his life including many years working voluntarily as a bird bander with John McKean of the CSIRO. While doing this he observed large numbers of Zebra Finches throughout Australia. He was president of the Canberra Bird Fanciers Society for some years before he was presented with life membership. He was a tireless worker when it came to organising annual exhibitions. John has bred and exhibited Zebra Finches for many years. He counts as his most memorable effort in Zebra Finch showing, the award of Champion Old Zebra Finch at the Nationals in Newcastle, New South Wales, but feels his greatest breeding achievements were with Marked Whites during the early 1980s. His first birds of this variety were obtained many years earlier when he purchased two birds from David Burnett of Sydney, New South Wales in 1959. One was a Normal cock, the other a White hen with fawn markings. He paired these two birds and three years later bred the Marked White mutation. This was the beginning of his fascination with the variety. Through a series of perhaps fortuitous events he then obtained Marked Whites from Bruce Read and Harold Fryer, and then several excellent cocks from a breeder in Tamworth, New South Wales. Some of these cocks were bred with Marked White hens, but the most success was obtained when the cocks were bred with Grey hens from Mr Rod Ordish of Canberra, ACT. Later, this line was combined with a stylish Black- face cock from Gordon Coulter. Cocks and hens from this strain won major awards throughout New South Wales, but sadly, the line was lost in 1994 when the birds were stolen from his aviaries. Even with this setback, John has continued to pursue the breeding of Zebra Finches and in particular Marked Whites. At the same time he breeds, exhibits and judges several varieties of canaries, foreign and Australian finches and parrots.
