A keen outdoorsman, environmentalist and long-serving chairman of the Otago Fish and Game Council, Mr Wright was also in familiar territory at the Dunedin Bird Club's 136th annual show in the city yesterday.
Mr Wright (77) has been a member of the club for the past 65 years, and is also a life member of the Dunedin Poultry, Pigeon and Cage Bird Club.
The Dunedin Bird Club has been on its own long-distance mission, and - at 137 years old - is the longest continuously operating bird club in the southern hemisphere, organisers say.
On Saturday night, the club unexpectedly put him up on the perch, and in the spotlight, as they paid tribute to his long involvement.
"I've had a lot of fun right through," Mr Wright adds.
When other children were playing with toys, or reading about other things, Mr Wright was being given books on birds by his relatives, because of his keen interest.
At the age of 13, he acquired his first pair of budgies, and bantams soon followed.
After joining the club in 1953, his initial interest in budgies later switched to canaries, and when he got married in 1965, he was ready to abandon his love of birds forever.
But he and his wife Colleen Wright (nee Calder) soon became birds of a feather, as she shared his interest, and their son, Shane, also has birds in his blood.
Monty Wright has long enjoyed the breeding of canaries, as well as judging a wide range of bird species, both here and in Australia.
"I don't know what attracted me to birds in the first place, but I've been attracted to them my whole life."
"But I really enjoy people. That sums it up - I'm a people person," he said.
And through his interest in birds, and his earlier involvement in rugby, including as a national selector for the New Zealand Universities rugby team, and as a world champion fly fisherman in 1991, he has made friends throughout the world.
And the small flock of Wright family bird fanciers made a further big impression last year, when they set a record, as the first family to have three members judging simultaneously at the New Zealand Federation of Bird Clubs nationals, in Christchurch.
The Dunedin club's latest show manager, Simon Tipa, said the club and the show remained in good heart this year, having attracted 497 competitive entries, up from 480 last year, including a trebling in border canary entries, to 60.
