Question: Canary anatomy

By Editor

Email from a VCC visitor:

I am an avian rescuer, by that, I mean that I adopt birdies that are defective or were abandoned, etc. In general, those are not canaries but other species whichs anatomy and physicology I am quite informed about. But I am pretty clueless about canaries.
One thing puzzles me: the shape of the vent/cloaca in canaries.
In budgies, for example, the abdomen is basically (if no conditions are presented) “roundish”, no protuberances, basically the vent is not really raised nor shaped in any particular way. Basically, the vent is represented by a hole in the lower abdomen. Canaries’ feathers are so much fluffier and the vent is not so easy to watch/see. I have got the impression that the vent appears in a sort of protuberance, so to speak, and is not lying almost “flat” against the abdomen. There is like a roundish protuberance behind the vent. I am supposed to have females (and they behave like such, although I never bred them or anything). But I am not sure if I am explaining this right and need to see pics of how a female cloaca/vent is like because I want to make sure my canaries have a normal vent and tha the shape I see is not the result of some tumor or something weird in the area. Could you send me a drawing of how a vent should be like and/or tell me if there is away to know if the bird has a tumor? (I can’t take it to the vet because I already have been taking care of sick birdies and am broke – btw, my females seem healthy and normal, it is the vent that makes me wonder).