Well as you know by now my name is Stuart Drury.

I am 36 and I’ve been married to Claire for six years, we have two beautiful boys, Daniel (four) and Adam (one).

I spent 30 years living in Great Barr, Birmingham and then moved to Burntwood, near Lichfield in 1999 when I got married.

I work for an engineering/manufacturing company that supplies the Oil and Gas industry with special hydraulic tooling. I’ve been with the company for 20 years now and take care of all customer repair work.

Birds

From as young as I can remember I have held a passion for birds, in particular British Finches.

I think my favourite has to be the Bullfinch, this is a beautiful bird that was in abundance 25 years ago but sadly, through my observations, seems to have declined.

In 2001 I decided to convert my small shed into my first birdroom.

It was only a 7’ x 5’ shed but I managed to get 4 good sized breeding cages in and a small internal flight.

I chose Greenfinches as my first birds and picked up 2 pairs from Stafford at the beginning of 2001.

Being a complete novice led me to an unsuccessful first season, both pairs went to nest but I lost all the young to the common condition in British birds..."Going Light".

The years 2002, 2003 and 2004 did give me some success in breeding Greenfinches although I still lost a few along the way.

It wasn’t until early 2005 that I took interest in the Java Sparrow; I was searching the Internet for ideas on building my new birdroom, a brand new 8' x 8' shed. I kept coming across Steve Nesbitt's site www.snaviaries.co.uk and Rob Salem’s www.javafinch.com The more I read about the Java, the more interested I became.

In 2005 I decided that I would stop keeping British birds until I feel that I have gained enough knowledge and experience in bird keeping. So until then I have chosen the Java Sparrow, these are stunning birds and are a lot easier to accommodate and cater for…..breeding them is easier too!!!
 

Here's me playing my Epiphone Les Paul at an NV gig!!



NV....not the best photo!!
 

Alongside my bird-keeping hobby, my main passion is music.

I now have 20 years experience under my belt playing guitar and singing, and I’ve been in many bands over the years.

My current band, NV, has been my longest serving band. I have been with them since 1995 (I think!!) but we don’t play as often as we used to.

My main work as a musician/entertainer is with a duo called BackBeat in which we work the social club circuit around the Midlands and beyond.



Me and Steve performing a "BackBeat" show.
I'm playing my Rickenbacker 325....the same guitar John Lennon used with The Beatles!!

I am a huge fan of the Beatles and I’ve travelled to Liverpool, London, New York and San Francisco to see the “Beatle sights”.

My nearest experience to meeting a Beatle was a couple of years ago in Tamworth.

My duo, BackBeat, were booked to do a show with the original Beatles drummer Pete Best, which to me was amazing as I’ve read so much about him over the years.

Pictured right is me and Steve with Pete Best.

Backstage with a Beatle!!
 

I also, for my sins, support Aston Villa although I don’t have the time or money to go down as often as I’d like. I’m quite lucky though as my Father-in Law works for Aston Villa and gets complimentary season tickets, so I do get to see a few games each season

And now my newest hobby is website building!!!

This is my very first website and it’s took me several weeks to get all this information together to use. I’m also working on a website for my band so watch this space.

Plans for the future????  To breed lots of Java’s!!!