Tim had said that James is the only person that he is in touch with these days that actively keeps Self Bengos and he lives in the Gold Coast and after he gave me James' number I gave him a call. Once again I was happy to discover another keen advocate for the Self Bengalese Mannikin. Later James sent through a few images of some of his Selfs that he has kept and it was here that I got a clearer picture of what a show quality Bengalese looks like
I noticed the more solid colour on these birds whereas on my "Pet Shop" Bengos from Sydney they had very fine variations and flecks in colour. As with Bruces Bengos the head and build of the bird was also thicker through the neck
These were indeed a beautiful finch and seemed almost like a different species. As you can see from the pictures the underbelly markings of these Self Bengos were more defined also. The Bengos here are Chocolates and Chestnuts
The Chestnut above shows that in Australia we do have Self Bengalese that have good V shaped underbody markings and show something that leans towards the Euro Self but this has not been achieved through Hybridization but selective breeding.