We have been fortunate in being given a series of upcoming articles by Don Burke of Burke's Backyard and rare budgerigar breeder. Don has offered us some articles he has written and I am about to post three.

 

 

 

 

THE WORLD’S FIRST CLEARBODIES

19/1/11

 

Australia produced the world’s first clearbodies way back in 1930. Not only that, but around 1962 a blackwing yellow (then incorrectly known as a greywing yellow) won Champion of the NSW State Show. This bird had a dazzling pure yellow body with an inky-black wing colour (sheer triumph, but weird judging, since only greywing or cinnamonwing yellows were standard: this was a normal!).

 

It wasn’t until 1950 that the Texas clearbody turned up and later on in 1955 the Easley Clearbody also came along. Perhaps we could also refer back to the lacewing as a red-eyed cinnamon-winged clearbody, this one turned up in 1946.

 

All this became clearer when my wife gave me a copy of Neville Cayley’s ‘Budgerigars in Bush & Aviary’ for Christmas. It was written in 1933 and published in 1935. This book is dazzlingly luminous for its time.

 

He refers to blackwing yellows & whites and greywing yellows and whites as “in existence, and probably will be established in the near future.” That is, too rare to be seen as an established variety. (It’s curious to note that the variety is still at the verge of extinction today). Cinnamonwing yellows and whites are mentioned as established varieties. They were developed around 1930. It astounded me that way back then, Cayley notes that “some recognized authorities (opined) that yellow or white cannot carry the greywing factor.” That is that even in 1933, genetics experts denied that a greywing yellow or white could exist. Those experts were proven correct by Ken Yorke in 1997. If the yellow or white body colour was caused by the dilute gene (as it was) then the presence of the recessive dilute gene must exclude the dominant greywing gene.

 

In theory you could easily get a greywing or cinnamonwing Texas Clearbody as this is a mutation that dilutes the body colour of existing varieties (eg normal) rather than putting a dark wing colour on dilutes (aka blackeyed yellows or white).

 

Sorting all varieties out by wing colour, rather than by mutation, Cayley listed four groups:

 

1.Blackwings or “Darkwings”

this includes normal greens and blues

Plus blackwing yellows and whites

 

2.Greywings

Greywing greens and blues

Plus greywing yellows and whites

 

3.Cinnamonwings

Cinnamonwing greens and blues

Plus cinnamonwing yellows and whites

 

4.Clearwings or “Lightwings”

Clearwing greens and blues

Plus (wait for it!) clearwing yellows and whites: that is, blackeyed yellows and whites.

 

Clearwings Vs Greywings

From what he writes about Clearwings and Greywings in the early 1930s, the only difference between the two varieties was the depth of body colour. Both had greyish markings on the wings, but clearwings had far greater contrast between the body and wing colours due to the extra-intense body colour. Hence the decision had already been made to try to clear up the wing colour on the clearwings to perfect the look. He notes the aim to get the wing “markings as faintly defined as possible; primaries and tail white”.

 

In his superb paintings, greywings and clearwings have identical depth and pattern of wing markings, but whites and yellows (deeply suffused then) had a clearer wing. The clearwings had a vastly deeper body colour than the greywings

 

This again raises the question as to whether greywing and clearwing are separate wing-colour mutations or whether the real difference is simply the depth of body colour. The very clear wings on Australian clearwings are obviously a man-made effect from constant selection for ever clearer wings. Cayley regards the increased depth of body colour in clearwings as being a genetic difference and postulates the existence of dark and light body colours in all varieties including normal, cinnamonwing, greywing and clearwing. He calls this normal body colour vs 50% intensity body colour.

 

While this all seems a bit whacky these days, please note that 50% body colour intensity does occur in greywings. I produce a number of intensely body-coloured dilutes from my clearwings each year. I also produce some cinnamonwings with wishy-washy body colour as well as others with deep body colour. His theory seems to fail in relation to normals, however. In general, normals don’t seem to produce 50% body-coloured birds (apart from the mutation called Faded).

 

When I cross clearwings to normals, I commonly get clearwings with 50% body colour in the second generation. They also have greyish wing markings and no judge could tell these apart from greywings.

 

The other curiosity in Cayley’s book is the fact that budgerigars were developed overseas, not in Australia. We seem to have convinced ourselves that we were, at least, equal to Europe and the rest of the world in developing mutations: we weren’t.

 

John Gould took budgies to England in 1840 and this began a flood of exports of budgies to Europe. While Europeans worked hard to develop the new mutations and the science of budgie breeding, Australians relied on trapped birds. “No-one thought it worthwhile trying to breed them” as Cayley grew up: “it seemed a useless waste when they (trapped birds) could be purchased in dozens at the cost of only a few shillings.”

 

Yellow birds were developed in Holland in 1870 and lutinos were established around 1878. Blues turned up in Holland around 1880 and became established in Belgium by 1910. Blue budgies were imported into Australia from Europe in 1918.

 

Cayley notes that there is “no recorded occurrence of albinos or lutinos in Australia”. This is 1933 yet lutinos were being bred in numbers in Europe in 1878!

 

I suppose the reason that England (& not Australia) still seems to set all of the standards for budgies is that they and other European countries got it all going – including breed standards, colour standards and budgie clubs. We didn’t really get much happening in the Land of Oz until about 1930.

 

Anyway – if you can ever get a copy of Neville Cayley’s ‘Budgeriars in Bush and Aviary’ I strongly recommend that you do so. My copy is in good condition and cost $40 from Andrew Isles Natural History Books in Melbourne – www.andrewisles.com

13/1/11

 

http://www.bestofbreeds.net/wbo/article11.htm

Edited May 15, 201114 yr by **KAZ**

Thanks Kaz, very interesting read. Keep them coming.

WOW. wow.

 

 

This article really knocked my socks off!

 

 

Maybe it's because I've always been interested in the greywing varieties, but I had lumped them all into the "too hard" basket, and only recently gotten them back out and tried to sort through them better.

 

 

So I think what I should be taking home from this article is that instead of looking for the elusive "clearwing gene", I should breed what greywings I have, and select for the specimens with the brightest body color and the clearest wings. (Mind you I'm only talking pet types. If I had show types, there would be a lot of other things to select for as well.)

 

 

The whole article is great food for thought as well. Thanks, Kaz, for getting these on here for us.

Very interesting comment about the clearwings and greywings original wing colouring. Kinda puts paid to a lot of the chatter about the English version of the clearwing and the Australian version of the clearwing being 2 different mutations. Amazing what selection can do really. One onely needs to look at the chicken industry to realize that selective breeding can have big effects.

Why is it when a TV personality mentions something like the wing markings of the early Clearwings and Greywings being similar everybody listens! I have been trying to get this across for years yet get ignored.

 

Don Burke, great bloke no doubt, but he does have a tendancy to go off on tangents in his articles. I have both a first and second edition of Neville Cayley's book. I have also been lucky enough to see an actual painting of his which resides with a breeder in Perth.

 

As for the title of his article "The world's first Cleabodies", what he is in effect talking about is the bird now know in Australia as the 'Darkwing' of which I have bred.

 

Didn't I read somewhere that Don himself advocates the Clearwing should have clean wings! Yet conceedes in this article that they orignally did not.

 

I have been super busy lately but if I get a chance I will scan the plates in the book and post in this topic.

HAHAHA have a look at my off-topic "rant" about TV personalities!

HAHAHA have a look at my off-topic "rant" about TV personalities!

 

I read that first and was so inspired by your literary genius that I felt I had to offer up a peice of my own.