Thursday, 3 September 2015
Ghalib Al-Nasser by Rare Budgerigar Varieties - Dilutes
The first budgerigar variety to appear in the wild among the grass green budgerigars was the yellow. It was reported that yellows were seen in a large flock of green budgerigars as early as 1872. Further mutations of yellows appeared in Belgium at around the same time and a few years later in Germany. Since that time, the first colour budgerigar to mutate from the grass green, the yellow, was established and for many years was a very popular variety.
Soon after, towards the end of the 1870's, the first skyblue mutated from the grass green and thereafter many other varieties appeared either by mutation or combination. And because of the mutation being the first to be established, the yellow boom reached its height by the beginning of the last century. It has been reported that the first yellows were bred in Great Britain in 1884 by Mr. Joseph Abrahams of London. This was from a pair brought in from Belgium and two years later they were exhibited in London for the first time by a London fancier Mr. Swaysland. The yellows that were seen, bred and exhibited in those days were what we now call the light yellow. One of the original pioneers of this mutation in this country was R. J. Watts who was a founder member of The Budgerigar Club (now the Budgerigar Society) in 1925 and then president in 1938-40.
The whites did not come on the scene till the early 1920's and that was not by mutation but by a combination of colours. And as early as the appearance of the yellow, breeders were able to establish that the mutation is controlled by a recessive gene in its mode of production.
The term "dilute" was given to those yellows and whites for easy reference and because of the colour dilution of the feather. The yellow is a green coloured budgerigar with reduction in the amount of melanin granules (colour pigment) present in the feather. This reduction in colour intensity is more than that found in the greywing mutation which is about half of that of the depth of colour found in the normal varieties. The white is a blue coloured budgerigar with a reduction in the colour pigment and works in a similar way to the yellows.
The dilute variety is appealing to many fanciers throughout the World and good quality birds, whether yellow or white, have been sought by many. Good specimens have been bred over the years and won major awards on the show bench throughout the World. Of course, in the U.K. the memorable win with this variety was achieved at the 1985 Budgerigar Society club show when a baby grey white cock won the supreme award for R & W Nattrass.
The variety is also used extensively by breeders of other specialist varieties. Both ino and clearwing breeders use the dilute to advantage to improve their respective varieties by adding size, colour and feather texture. For the benefit of the reader there are three types of yellows and two types of whites. The mere fact of mentioning the different types of dilutes could confuse the fancier who would like to breed with this variety. However, it is of importance that one understands the differences.
- There is the light yellow, which was very popular but for one reason or another seems to have vanished from the U.K. The light yellow has a buttercup yellow body colour and was sometimes referred to as buttercup yellows rather than light yellows. The deviation from the light yellows are the dark yellow and olive yellow which are darker in the colour intensity. Apart from their body colour, the cheek patches are silvery white and the throat spots are absent.
- Another variety that developed over the years when greens were introduced to yellows are the suffused yellows. From their name it is understood that the yellow is suffused with the green (either light, dark or olive green) and the intensity of this suffusion can vary from minimum through to almost 50% of the normal body colour. They differ from the light yellow mainly by the colour of the cheek patches, which are pale blue to pale violet.
- The third type of yellow is the grey yellow which has a grey colour modifier present that changes the body colour to a dull mustard yellow. The cheek patches are of pale grey. Both the suffused and grey yellows have pale grey throat spots. Each of the above types of yellow are easily identifiable from the body and cheek patches colour.
- the suffused and
- the grey white.
It is not always easy to explain why a variety vanishes and in the case of the light (buttercup) yellow the only possible explanation is that they were small when compared to the suffused or grey yellows. I saw many examples of the light yellows on my trip to Australia in 1994. The Australians refer to them as black-eyed yellows.
Earlier I mentioned that the dilutes are a recessive variety and the laws of producing recessive varieties is well documented. There are three pairs that can produce visual dilutes. These are:
- Dilute paired to dilute will produce all dilutes.
- Dilute paired to a non dilute that is split for dilute will produce 50% dilutes
- while the last type of pairing is the mating of two split dilutes together which results in only 25% of the chicks being dilutes.
This just shows how a recessive variety can appear without one's knowledge. The dilute also has a close relationship with two other recessive varieties namely the greywing and clearwing (yellow-wing and whitewing). Even though they are all recessive, the greywings and clearwings are dominant to the dilutes. When pairing a greywing (or clearwing) to a dilute all the chicks will be greywings (or clearwings) split for dilutes. Because of the superior quality of the dilute to the clearwing many clearwing breeders find the dilute of valuable asset in their breeding programme.
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Ghalib Al-Nasser By Rare Budgerigar Varieties, The Lacewing
Fanciers have always had a fascination for livestock possessing redeyes and Budgerigar fanciers are no exception.
The Lacewing Budgerigar is another mutation that has a similar appearance to the Lutino and Albino with the clear body colour of yellow (in the green series) or white (in the blue series) and having the red eye as well. Perhaps the interest in this variety is restricted in comparison to the two Ino varieties but still has its appeal to many including myself. All the above varieties come from one and the same factor. This has the effect of eliminating the melanin of the black pigment in the feathers and even the eyes of the bird and therefore turning the bird from a green or a blue to a clear yellow or white with that red eye effect. The Lacewing variety is similar in appearance to that of the Lutino and Albino as they have a clear body colour, yellow or white. But the marking on cheeks, back of head, neck, wings and tail is of cinnamon brown. The cheek patches are of pale violet instead of silvery white in the Ino variety and they have well defined cinnamon brown throat spots. They have fleshy pink feet and the cocks also have a fleshy pink cere. Eyes are the same as the Inos; red with a white iris ring.
The Lacewing variety has been bred since 1948. It was recorded that hens appeared in a Lutino stud from a Light Green cock of unknown history paired to a Lutino hen. It seems that these 'badly' marked Lutinos and their normal brothers were disposed of. The late Cyril Rogers was able to trace and obtain one of these normal offspring cocks and after mating to a number of normal hens the Lacewing variety was established. Some of those Lacewings were exported to various parts of the World including South Africa where it was further established. Cyril exhibited the first Lacewing at the 1951 National Exhibition and in late 1968 the Budgerigar Society standardised the variety. The interest in this variety was revived when, on a judging visit, the late Alf Ormerod and Brian Byles brought back examples of this variety from South Africa and bred them with a degree of success. The South African strain seemed to have much deeper and clearer markings and hence the appeal in them was greater.
I obtained my initial Lacewing in 1977 from the Byles strain and was reasonably successful with them prior to my giving up bird keeping in 1979 for 3 years. In 1983 I obtained a quality pair from the late Alf Ormerod which started me back with Lacewings. The variety is sex-linked, like the Ino, and therefore hens cannot be split for Lacewing while cocks can. Hens, because of the sex-linked recessive inheritance genetic theory, can only be either visual Lacewing or non-Lacewing.
The possible pairings with this variety when paired to non-Lacewings (let us use the word "normal" for simplicity) are:
| 1 | Lacewing cock x Lacewing Hen | 50% Lacewing cocks50% Lacewing hens |
| 2 | Lacewing cock x normal hen | 50% normal/Lacewing cocks50% Lacewing hens |
| 3 | Normal cock x Lacewing hen | 50% normal/Lacewing cocks50% normal hens |
| 4 | Normal/Lacewing cock x Lacewing hen | 25% Lacewing cocks25% normal/Lacewing cocks 25% Lacewing hens 25% normal hens |
| 5 | Normal/Lacewing cock x normal hen | 25% normal cocks25% normal/Lacewing cocks 25% Lacewing hens 25% normal hens |
The Amos & Thumwood partnership achieved great heights with a Lacewing Yellow cock two years ago when they won best in show at a championship show. Like the Ino, the suffusion of the green or blue in the body colour is an undesirable fault. One way of ensuring that this suffusion does not occur is the use of the grey factor birds (Greys and Grey Greens). However, this has the undesirable effect of dulling the body colour if continuously used.
The aim is to produce Lacewings with deep buttercup yellow and the use of dark factor birds as breeding partners will go a long way towards achieving that. Another area to consider is the deep cinnamon brown marking on the wings, mantle etc. There are two schools of thoughts on how to achieve that.
One school of thought encourages the use of Cinnamon birds as partners while the other encourages the use of normals. It can be said that the Cinnamon will dilute the body colour including the wing marking. It is quite apparent that producing a quality Lacewing with the correct marking is not an easy task and here lies the challenge.
My preference is to outcross Lacewings to normals only and without introducing other varieties into the equation. Having said that, there has been scientific evidence, through the work of Dr. Trevor Daniel in the early 1980's, stating that the Lacewing is in fact a Cinnamon Ino. He went about proving his theory by mating an Ino to a Cinnamon and cross mating youngsters, which eventually resulted in him producing a Lacewing. This is due to the "crossover" of the genes because the cinnamon gene and the Ino gene are located very close to each other on the chromosome. However, many Lacewing enthusiasts have disagreed with this theory believing that the Lacewing is a mutation in its own right. Regardless of what theory one would like to accept the Lacewing is a beautiful variety that has its own place on the show bench.
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