The Bengo Colours

Here is a comprehensive list from overseas of the Bengo colours represented on a poster.

This list is from overseas and a large amount of the colours are not available in Australia or the status is unknown. The Bengos that are known to be in Australia are highlighted Red  

Self chocolate 1 (Pictured is the Euro Self)  

Self chestnut 2  

Self-fawn 3  

Chocolate dilute 4  (in the past but presently unknown)  

Chestnut dilute 5  

Fawn dilute 6   (in the past but presently unknown) 

Chestnut clearwing 7  

Fawn clearwing 8  

Self black-grey 9  

Self chestnut-grey 10  

Black-grey dilute 11  

Chestnut-grey dilute 12  

Chestnut clearwing 13  

Self fawn-grey 14  

Fawn grey dilute 15  

Fawn grey clearwing 16  

Cream ino 17  

Grey ino 18  

Self-white 19  

Albino 20  

Marked-whitehead 21  

Marked-with-eyering 22  

Marked-with-cap 23  

Fawn-marked-with-cap 24  

Chocolate-and-white 25  

Chestnut-and-white 26  

Chocolate crested 27  

Fawn crested 28  

White crested 29

Selfblack-grey frill 30

New Benglalese Colour Chart.

JMC is the Bengalese and Lonchura Society in the Netherlands. The UK book "The Bengalese Finch" originates from this group.

www.jmc-lonchura


These read from left to right;

- Self Chocolate, Self Chestnut, Self Fawn, Black Grey

- Chestnut Grey, Red Grey, Dilute Self Chestnut, Dilute Self Fawn, Dilute Chestnut Grey

- Dilute Red Grey, Chestnut Clearwing, Fawn Clearwing, Chestnut Grey Clearwing, Red (Fawn[Admin]) Grey Clearwing

- Chocolate Pearl, Grey Pearl, Cremino, Grey Ino, Pink-Eyed White (Albino[Admin])

- Pied, Spotted White Headed, White Headed With Cap, White Headed With Eye Markings, Black-Eyed White

- Crested "Bonten", Frizzled With Breast Frills "Chiyoda", Frizzled With Neck Frills and Crest "Chunagon", Frizzled With Breast Frills Neck Frills and Crest "Dianagon"
 
For all Frilled Bengalese, the "Quotation" comments are the Japanese names as Japan is the origin of these particular Frills.

Clearwing 2

As mentioned before, there are still remnants of the Clearwing mutation (or Pastel as it has been called) in Australia. They are a recessive trait and traditionally they occur in Ginger and Dilute Ginger Bengalese Finches.

As seen above the Mutation can vary into other colours

 

Especially here we see a fairly dark Red/Brown (Ginger) and personally think it has quite a striking appearance with the heavier contrast

I am curious as to whether the Clearwing Mutation can occur in the darker birds like the Chestnut and Chocolate. I will be keeping an eye out for any images to share.

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