Ken Yorke
Confused? Well we will attempt to cover one of the most confusing group of varieties available in this country (Australia): the Clearbodies.
If you look up your ANBC Standard you won't find the word "Clearbody" mentioned anywhere, yet the Clearbody is a standard variety. You will, however, find in the Standard, the varieties Greywing Yellow and Greywing White (in the Greywing section). In recent times the term "Clearbody" has come to be associated with these two varieties, in Australia at least.
The term "Clearbody" loosely means a bird which has a clear body (i.e., yellow or white) but normal markings, the exact reverse of a Clearwing (clear wings and normal body). In America they have a mutation which has normal marked wings with a yellow or white body. The term "Clearbody" is of American origin. It could be argued that we in Australia have at least one similar mutation. This mutation (or possibly a couple of similar mutations) was given the name Greywing Yellow (or Greywing White).
With the benefit of hindsight, a more confusing name could not have been chosen. On first seeing the name "Greywing Yellow", one immediately thinks of a compound variety involving Greywing and Black-eyed Yellow (i.e., Dilute). However geneticists will tell you that this is physically impossible since Greywing is dominant over Yellow. The confusion becomes worse now that we know that the Greywing Yellow is not a true Greywing (as in say a Greywing Light Green). The term "Clearbody" is gradually becoming more popular and less confusing for these birds.
Andy Mason and his younger brother "Nook" were keen bird breeders as lads, which no doubt was instilled in them from their father, Andrew C. Mason, well known as a champion racing pigeon breeder. Their father was renowned for his knowledge of bird breeding and extensive library on the subject. He wrote sometimes for publications in England and Canada etc.
The boys used to save all their money to spend on birds. Andy, an apprentice carpenter, used to make cages for a bird shop which was two or three doors down from the Civic theatre in Newcastle. One particular Friday night he delivered some cages to Fred Barker's bird shop and he noticed that the dealer had just received a consignment of several hundred wild budgerigars, which had been caught in the country. He chose a couple of pairs from this lot, these particular birds because they were slightly bigger than the rest, (something that his father had told him to look for in birds) and they were also a slightly different colour green to the usual. Andy described them as being a pale green about the colour seen on Silvereyes.
These birds were subsequently mated and in one nest of eight or nine youngsters, one was noticeably different to all the rest. This one bird had a yellow body with the normal yellow and black wing markings of a green bird. With their father's guidance and knowledge, they were able to use this bird and its close relatives to produce more of these birds.
They bred these birds for three years, then wrote to the Budgerigar Society of Australasia in Sydney in order to give the variety a name. The Society asked to see some of the live birds and a pair was sent. The BSA decided to call the birds Greywing Yellows; this was in about 1933-4. After refusing to sell the pair, one bird was returned and the other unfortunately died while in Sydney.
Andy and his cousin next door, Joe Wilmott (himself responsible for the development of the Harlequin in Australia many years later) then took some of the Greywing Yellows to Sydney, to compare their birds with those being bred by the well-known Sydney breeders. Not one breeder had seen or heard of anything like them. During this aviary tour, they came across breeders (one named Johnson and another, whose name has been forgotten, who lived in North Sydney) who were breeding birds with grey wing markings but they had nothing like the black markings of the Newcastle birds.
Andy and Nook bred birds as the "Mason Brothers", and often sold their Greywing Yellows to breeders (mostly from Sydney) for 6 pounds Australian a pair, a lot of money during the Depression. When the brothers sold out their stock, the birds went to all corners of the land (although a lot probably went to Sydney again). After getting married Andy switched back to breeding racing pigeons and gouldian finches, while Nook (more well-known to established Newcastle budgerigar breeders) continued to breed budgerigars until his death a couple of years ago.
The history of some other varieties has shown that they have occurred approximately simultaneously in different areas. In a lot of these cases the varieties were only one or two generations removed from wild stock which may mean that the mutations actually occurred in the wild but were not enhanced or developed until they were more closely inbred in captivity by breeders skilled or lucky enough to spot these mutations.Such may been the case with the Greywing Yellow. The ANBC Standard which includes a small section on the history of the different varieties gives some credit to a Mr Shaw of Sydney for developing Greywing Yellow by selection around 1934 (he may have been the "unknown" North Sydney breeder above).
South Australia may also have a link in the history of the Greywing Yellow,but again nothing appears in print about it. Perhaps some of our Australian readers could find something out for us. It is believed that the Australian version of the Clearbody (i.e., the Greywing Yellow) is only available in Australia. For those of you who are brave enough to carry on, the Clearbody tale now becomes even more confusing with the appearance the Cinnamonwing Clearbody. Again this is a variety which has been standardised under another name - the Cinnamonwing Yellow (or White). This can be found in the Cinnamonwing section of the ANBC Standard.
When the novice first comes across the term "Cinnamonwing Yellow", one immediately presumes it is a compound variety of Cinnamonwing and Yellow. Wrong!! In actual fact the modern Black-eyed Yellow in Australia is the true compound variety of Cinnamonwing and the original Yellow (i.e.,Dilute). From a genetic viewpoint the modern Black-eyed Light Yellow is really a Cinnamonwing Dilute Light Green.
What then, is the Cinnamonwing Yellow described in the Standard? To answer one must know about the Cinnamonwing factor and its effect on other varieties. Most budgerigar's feathers contain black pigment in various proportions and configurations. The most highly concentrated areas of black pigment occur in the black wing markings, head, neck and saddle barring and mask spots. When the Cinnamonwing is introduced into other variety it causes any black pigment present to change to brown pigment, hence the brown markings instead of black. Therefore, when the Cinnamonwing factor is introduced into a Clearbody, the black markings become brown markings. The result is a yellow (or white) body colour with brown markings.
This bird when it first appeared was given the name Cinnamonwing Yellow, but in actual fact genetically it is Cinnamonwing Clearbody, or put another way it is the Cinnamonwing form of the Greywing Yellow. At first glance they can resemble Lacewings. Lacewings have red eyes not black. Quite often reference is given to the terms "Cinnamonwing Yellow" and "Cinnamon Yellow". This was an attempt which hasn't really worked to end the confusion in the names given the different varieties. The term "Cinnamonwing Yellow" was to be the Cinnamonwing Clearbody as mentioned earlier, and the "Cinnamon Yellow" to mean the modern Black-eyed Yellow. Since the word Cinnamon is only an abbreviation of the word Cinnamonwing which has crept into the hobby to describe the usual green and blue series birds this system has not worked very well. To use the term Clearbody is much less confusing.
This darkwing mutation appears to be recessive to normal (anecdotal evidence only). It has been in existence since the 1930's but has almost without exception been retained in combination with yellows in order to produce the dark winged yellow bird (known as the Greywing Yellow or Australian Clearbody). The assumption in the past has been that it was either another member of the Greywing, Clearwing, Dilute multiple allele family or it was a separate mutation. Both these theories appear to be incorrect. It is likely that the Greywing Yellow is a compound variety of Yellow and an unnamed dark wing variety. In error it was given the name Greywing Yellow.
The most common matings used in producing Greywing Yellows (Australian Clearbodies) are:
| Pairing | Expectation |
|---|---|
| Greywing Yellow (sf) × Yellow | 50% Greywing Yellow (sf) 50% Yellow |
| Greywing Yellow (sf) × Greywing Yellow (sf) | 25% Greywing Yellow (df) 50% Greywing Yellow (sf) 25% Yellow |
N.B. The existence of the Double factor Greywing Yellow has not been proven beyond all doubt at this stage.
The above matings are also very common incorporating Cinnamonwing as well. Very few other matings other than the above have ever been tried in all the years of the existence of the variety.
I would like to thank Joe Wilmott, Andy Mason and Frank Amos for their efforts assisting my research into the above article.
Original text copyright © 1986, revised 1996, Ken Yorke
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