Judging a poultry show is about as easy as flying is for a chicken.
The two-day 70th annual Milton Poultry Show opened at Coronation Hall in Milton yesterday and continues today.
The show is open until 3pm.
South Island Poultry, Pigeon and Cage Bird Association president Robin Thompson is one of six judges at the show.
He spent yesterday morning immersed in the judging of the cage bird section.
He said it was his duty, as the South Island president, to travel to as many of the shows as he could.
Poultry shows will have him flitting from one end of the South Island to the other over the next couple of months.
"Nine weeks out of 10 I won't be at home,'' he said.
He will judge seven poultry shows in that time and compete in others with his own cage birds.
Mr Thompson's interest in birds took flight from a young age and he started judging about 15 years ago.
He used to breed ducks and other fowl but changed to caged birds, such as budgies and pigeons, as the dust was affecting his health.
Mr Thompson said as a judge he looked for healthy feathers, birds that best represented preferred traits of the breed and how calm they were in their cages.
If the birds moved about a lot, it made observing them more difficult, he said.
Prizegiving will take place tonight.
Twenty-nine exhibitors from Blenheim to Invercargill entered more than 360 birds in the show.
