Working Towards a Recessive White

Here is a group of my Dilute (Pastel) Ginger Bengalese that I am selectively breeding over time to develop a completely diluted or recessive white bird. Unfortunately as you can see I'm quite a long way off yet.




























The Recessive White can be identified by having a horne coloured beak and is often still called a Dilute Fawn by many, however I would think that it presents much more like a white bird than Fawn (Ginger). The two images below are not from Australia.

The more commonly known white is the Dark Eyed White (DEW) which is in Canary terms a Clear Pied or 100% Pied bird. The DEW has a pink beak and looks quite different to the Reccesive white due to the pied factor removing all pigment in the beak and legs.

Why do I want to breed a recessive white, because I believe it is the key to breeding a true Grey series Bengalese Mutation in Australia (which doesn't currently exist here).... but that discussion is for another day.  :-)


Final note;
I'm humbled to always see hits to this Blog continually, so sorry for being a bit light on the blog entries but a big thanks to all that aparently see enough value in my ramblings to return for futher visits.
Cheers and enjoy your Bengos!

Blog Update

It is a busy year and unfortunately the Aussie Bengos Blog has suffered as far as updates. However I see that I receive plenty of hits on my Blog and again i thank you all for visiting me. Here are some images from my current set up. My passion for the Bengalese is strong and I have had some great results from some of my projects this year so i sincerely hope to update you on these.

Photobox (Carton) 1

Under this Label "Photobox", I'll post some of my photos that I have taken in my first Makeshift Photobox. I made this photobox simply by lining the inside of a beer carton with individual, battery powered adhesive LED lights. I made a perch from some dowel and then put a white paper backdrop. It looked completely rough as guts from the outside but after you crop the image on Photoshop it turned out really well. The other key is using an SLR camera or at least one that can be manually adjusted for exposure or shutter speed.



























Chocolate Self Above. This is one of my first images taken like this and it is a bit grainy (Noise) and this is because my ISO was not set correctly.

Chocolate Self Above, That's better..

Chestnut Self Above

Dilute Ginger Pied Above

Another Step Forward for the Self Bengalese

A few weeks back at a meeting at the Finch society of Australia, we had a guest speaker named Bob Barnes come through to speak about rare or extinct Finch and Softbill species Bob is well known in "Bird Circles" and equally respected. I was quite inspired by his words about Bird Keepers efforts to preserve Finch species (especially foreign) in Australia,  it resonated with me, and the concept properly hit home that when some birds in Australia are gone.....then they are gone. Aside from the various exotic species of finch Bob discussed birds like the African Silverbill, Rufus Backed Mannikin and The Javan Munia all of which are in decline in Australia.
Bob came across as very well spoken and I realized that we shared a few friends and he had actually seen my Self Bengalese at a friends place previously where I had some being held. After the meeting I bailed him up again because I could tell he was someone to talk sense with and I was learning a great deal from all of our conversation. It came up that I have this Blog and also get involved with the Aussie Finch Forum (which he frequents) and I was surprised and quite honestly very pleased that he was familiar with my effort to promote the Self Bengalese in Australia. What was most pleasing was that Bob continued to sincerely encourage me in my efforts since he personally agreed that the Self Bengalese is a poorly represented Finch in Australia.

Since this conversation we have spoken a few times and it was not long later that Bob was displaying interest in getting hold of some Self Chocolate Bengalese when they might come available. After this was raised a few times with me, one thing led to another and the concept of developing a breeding program together started to take shape. I have collected a few pairs of Selfs in the last 18 months and do not really have the facility to breed them all so Bob agreed to help and currently we have paired up some Selfs and also some of the Pied Dilute Bengos that I have so that we can develop the colours further.

It's a bloody exciting thing because now following a good season of breeding we will hopefully have a few birds to pick from and put on the show bench next year. Being a Canary and Zebra Finch Exhibitor also, I am learning a lot about showing birds through working with Bob on this and at least for now I have found a local Bird Breeder/Exhibitor that is passionate about the Self Bengalese. Regardless, his help is very much appreciated and it can only be good for our Aussie Self Bengo.

Pastel Discovered

I have been sent through some images from a member of the Aussie Finch Forum of a Pastel (or Dilute Ginger). Jason says that he bred this bird from a pair of Ginger Bengalese, which adds to the theory that the Pastel is recessive to all colours. The Gingers that reared this bird must have been split for Pastel to produce this one. I guess since these guys have been around in the past so the colour can still be present in birds split for it and show up randomly.
This Bengo from what my friend Tim tells me presents as a pied bird because of the white at the top of the bib (under the beak) and on the top of the head.

The image bellow confirms why the Pastel has been compared with the clearwing because the white on the body (wings and belly) is not showing pied but is normal for this dilution. I have read that this particular Pastel dilute factor can be selectively bred to develop a more solid coloured areas but preserve the white body like the Clearwings overseas.

A very nice Bengalese in my opinion and looks significantly different to the standard appearance of our Bengo in Australia which is something to preserve I think.

Cheers.

Pastel (Dilute Ginger) Self Bengalese

Last weekend my friend Tim sent me an article from a magazine that he found from 2002 that was written about the Bengalese Breeders Society in Qld by Mark Shipway you can download the article in my Download Library HERE. It is an excellent article that helps to paint the picture of the group's ideals in regards to the Aussie Bengo. Tim and James have often spoken about a colour called the Pastel and the colour is described in the BBS Colour Standard, this is a colour that I have been told about previously but have never been able to see an example. Because the Mutation is described in a similar way to the Clearwing I have to admit I have possibly gone off on the wrong tangent. I say this because there is a brief description and picture of this mutation in this great article. It is a beauty, I'm quite impressed as to how striking the Finch is. Since 2002 Self Bengalese and their breeders have been in decline as with this colour. As with the Silver (Dilute Chestnut) I have not heard of any being in anyones collections, however Tim has recently told be that he knows a breeder in Qld that has some pied Pastels so there may be hope for this Mutation yet.

This is the Australian Pastel pictured in the article on the Left.













An intersting thing that I have noticed about this particular picture of the Australian Pastel is that where on the darker Bengos like the Chocolate Chestnut and even the Ginger the traditional feather markings of the Bengalese breast scolloping is a primarily dark feather (the same colour as the head), and a lighter accented rim or outer edge, see below;

Chocolate

Chestnut

Ginger










Where as this Australian Pastel appears to have a kind of inverted appearance to these where the main colour of the breast feather is lighter than the darker rim;

Pastel











In the above mentioned BBS article Mark Shipway makes some comments about this Mutation;

 

You can see from his comments that Mark believed that this particular mutation was independant to the standard Ginger and its dilute factor.

Here are some examples below of Bengalese from Over Seas that look a lot like the Australian one but I still think that the scolloping of these birds have a more traditional look rather than the inverted look of this Australian Pastel above.

I'm quite excited to see this Australian Mutation the Pastel fully now and look forward to seeing one in the future.

Cheers