Steve Grows Fresno Peppers And Kale For His Birds

Beautiful view from the back yard.


His tangerine tree is loaded with ripening fruit.


Likewise this lemon tree is loaded too.


Steve picked the heads off his kale plants. His birds love to eat the yellow flowers. The kale is coated with aphids which makes the kale especially delicious!


Steve harvested some garden grown Fresno peppers, a mild pepper variety, with the kale to feed his birds.


He breaks the end a bit to make the pepper easier for the birds to eat.


Immediately after attaching the peppers with a clothes pin, the birds went for it!

Sunday Morning Billmire Home and Aviary

Steve and Christina Billmire

Sunday morning Alex and Nick decided they wanted waffles for breakfast. They got out the ingredients and prepared the batter and cook them without any adult help!


Steve kept a watchful eye on them from a distance. It was great to see them taking responsibility for their breakfast.


Rusty is the security system keeping watch over the two outside aviaries.


All of the outside exposed wire wire is covered with plexiglass to protect against rapid temperature change and mosquitoes that could transmit canary pox to the birds.

Inside there are numerous flight cages with natural branches.



Note the natural perches are attached to a piece of soft pine which is firmly attached to the window frame. This prevents the birds from perching so close to the wire and damaging their tail and wing feathers. Click on photo for a close look.


Steve likes to have millet spray and Laurel (bay leaf) branches hanging inside the flights for the birds to eat.


On this flight the laurel branches are on top but the birds still nibble on it.


The handy wire basket attached to the breeding cage door is holding a piece of bread. During breeding season, it is filled with nesting material.

Not in Kansas Anymore!

Steve grew up in the San Francisco area and since a small child has enjoyed eating ocean caught whole dungeness crab. When he ask if I like them, I replied that I had eaten some legs and usually already picked crab. I had never eaten a whole crab! So we stopped at a local supermarket and bought one...


Once home, He proceeded to dismember the crab, all the while instructing me every step of the way. He explained that only the male crab are harvested and the females are thrown back in the ocean to produce more crab.


Washing the body to get to more edible meat.


Now that it was ready to eat, I learned the correct tool to use to crack the various pieces open and to use the claw to easily find the delicious meat. I was surprised by variation in taste depending on whether it was from the sweeter claws or from the body. Each part tasted great but subtly different.

No doubt about it, I was not in Kansas Anymore!

Late Stop Saturday - Santa Clara Bird Show

Early Saturday morning, Steve Billmire had stopped at the Santa Clara Bird Show and entered some of his melanin colorbred in the show. After the Oakland Roller Show we went to the Santa Clara Bird Show, arriving around 15:45.

Anxiously we checked on his birds. This red isabel frost won a medallion for 3rd Best Melanin in the show. Lovely bird Steve!


Steve's Red Isabel Pastel also won a medallion for 3rd Best New Color!


He even won a Judge's Special Award!


Other exhibitors had checked out but we did get to see some Hartz exhibited by Ginger Wolnilk. Her carrier holds four show cages and zips them in securely. Great almond shaped heads on your Hartz Ginger!!


This box with a closing lid is a perfect fit for these Old Variety canaries exhibited by Tony Guiomar. Tony won a the Old Varieties division at National this year with a Southern Frill!


Tony also packed some of his birds in this zip close bag.


At dusk we arrived at Steve house and were greeted by his son.

Oakland Roller Show Winners

Congratulations Steve!!


Steve Billmire won Grand Champion Team with 208 points, Highest Young Bird with 50 points, Highest Old Bird with 58 points, Derby Team with 186 points, Old Derby Team with 208 points, Highest Four-Tour Team with 165 points, Master Breeder Single and Teams, Individual Bird Tour Specials: Glucke with 5 points, Hollow Bell with 7 points, and Flutes with 7 points!!

After the awards ceremony, Steve announced that when he imported the German stock last year, he did it to not only to improve his line but also to share with club members.


Sergio Martin won Champion Young Team with 174 points and Highest Champion Single with 47 points and Individual Bird Tour Specials for Hollow Roll with 15. points, Schockel with 4 points, and Water Tour with 4 points. Way to Go Sergio!!


Gus Garcia won Individual Bird Tour Special for Bass with 16 points!! What a Bass!!!

Carol Tucker accepts a third place Champion Team ribbon for her team!


Club Member Yuriy Frenkel stopped by to congratulate the winners..

And so my show season ended.....

And then Steve invited me to his home for my last night in California and on the way home we would stop at the Santa Clara Bird Show!! Can you believe this?

There are never too many bird shows, just too little time to attend them!!

Saturday Morning Song Clinic

The Huerta family, Jose, Angelina, Tingo, Kim, and Mary were the first visitors to the song clinic. They learned of the Oakland Roller Show from a friend Rigo Lopez who attended the Modesta Bird Show.

Steve Billmire had set up the large song explanation chart displayed below at the Modesto Bird Show. At the booth, Carol Tucker and Steve answered questions and promoted the German roller and advertised the upcoming Oakland Roller show. They even had a team of rollers that they set up for people to hear. Many type and color breeders had never heard the elegant roller song! What a great way to get the word out!

Other visitors came from either seeing or hearing from a friend about the NBC Bay Area News. One couples son heard the news broadcast and called his parents as he knew that they had lost their roller many years ago and had not been able to find a suitable replacement! Their eyes lite up when they heard the beautiful roller song again that they had enjoyed so many years ago!


Club President, Justin Agrella explains the roller song and identified tours. The visitors had many questions like "what was that or who sang that". Extensive knowledge and love of the roller song was very apparent as he spoke!


Steve points to special notes sang by this team and responded to visitors questions. What an effective team Justin and Steve were as they took turns patiently interacting with the visitors and sharing their knowledge and love of the roller fancy!!


Periodically, Steve or Justin used there song explanation chart to explain how the roller sings over a three octave range at four tempos.

Visitor Rigo Lopez took a number of bird pictures.

Jose stayed the entire clinic and caught a ride home with his friend Rigo. It was a perfect song clinic as he learned a great deal and even left with a bird in his paper bag and a show report and club membership list in hand!!

The bird he selected, exhibited by Sergio Martin sang its heart out for him. He especially loved the water tour that resemble water flowing from a faucet and how frequently the bird sang. The bird sang continuously except when he stopped momentarily to eat some seed!

Oakland Roller Show

Oakland International Roller Canary Club was established in 1923!


Competition rollers are housed in show cabinets waiting their turn to sing.


Show manager, Sergio Martin prepares teams to go into the judging room.


One stack of four rollers perform while Justin Agrella on my left and Steve Billmire on my right and myself independently assessed each rollers song, assigning points to the best rendition of the tours sung.

Justin and Steve were apprenticing with me as part of the requirements, scoring and obtaining a letter of recommendation from three different accredited roller judges, on their quest to become roller judges.


Justin's wife, Debbie thoughtfully brought us lunch!

Justin's son John is learning roller song from his daddy's knee just as he did from his father, the late Dan Agrella, noted roller judge and breeder!!



The lunch break was really appreciated. Thanks Debbie!


Robert Wild and wife Char from Chicago, stopped by the show just in time to hear the winning team. Robert judged type the same weekend at the Santa Clara Bird Show.

Steve and Justin entered the scores into the computer. Justin took the information home and worked on it Friday night. How fantastic it was to have copies of the report for everyone Saturday and also provided copies to the Song Clinic visitors!! Having a copy of the show report on Saturday is a special Oakland touch that is appreciated by exhibitors and visitors!!


Sergio takes a well deserved break after managing and stewarding the show!! Great job Sergio!!

Working together, you guys put on a top quality show!!!