# How would you classify this bird?



## loonecho (Feb 25, 2010)

This homer is a cock that is the son of my tiger grizzle cock paired with a blue bar pied splash hen. A couple weeks ago I started a thread asking what is pencil? Would you classify this bird as pencil? He is certainly "spread" and not tiger grizzle. Is there any specific name for this kind of pattern marking? Magpie perhaps? Or Stork marked? His nestmate was pure white hen except for about 5 black feathers on her rump. 

The following nesting produced two cocks almost completely white with black tips on the ends of the tail feathers and a faint black ring arround the lower neck (kind of like a necklace). The final nesting produced another cock marked identical this this guy and a T-pattern blue hen.

Thanks for your help'

Loonecho


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Hi,

This bird is definitely not pencil, nor tigered (as you said) , but I think it could be called magpie marked since the markings are similar to the magpie markings on the bird in this photo:









It wouldn't win any shows for the quality of the magpie mark though...

Regards,
Rudolph


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

A pied blue grizzle ?


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

It's just a black splash. Pencil is very rare in homers. Magpies have colored necks and tails, with white body and wings. I can't remember all of the "white genes", and if magpie is one of them. If not, then it takes the one to make the body white, and then another to make the wings white, I believe. I think yours is just a coincidence.

Is it just the pictures, or is he really that lightly colored? From the front, he looks a lot like a dirty blue. But from the back, you don't see a tail bar. Or was his dad a andalusian tiger?


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## loonecho (Feb 25, 2010)

MaryOfExeter said:


> Is it just the pictures, or is he really that lightly colored? From the front, he looks a lot like a dirty blue. But from the back, you don't see a tail bar. Or was his dad a andalusian tiger?


It must be the lighting. His markings are definitely black. He shows no tail bar. This must be a repeatable pattern as as subsequent nesting produced another cock identical to him. Unfortunately he fell victim to a Cooper's Hawk. Here is their sire.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Ah. Yes, the tiger cock must be het for spread, since you got a t-pattern out of him. BUT it's still cool that you're getting so many blacks


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Becky, since you are now looking at the thread, I have a question about the tiger sire in this thread.

Is there something going on over and above the tiger a grizzle? There are at least 2 flights that show white at the base, and as I understood it tiger grizzle affect the whole feather making it either white or colored. Why then the grizzled flights? Undergrizzle?

What would the expression of het. tiger grizzle, het. normal grizzle (I think they are alleles) on the same bird be? 

Regards,
Rudolph


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## loonecho (Feb 25, 2010)

rudolph.est said:


> Becky, since you are now looking at the thread, I have a question about the tiger sire in this thread.
> 
> Is there something going on over and above the tiger a grizzle? There are at least 2 flights that show white at the base, and as I understood it tiger grizzle affect the whole feather making it either white or colored. Why then the grizzled flights? Undergrizzle?
> 
> ...


I am glad you asked that question Rudolph as I have had the same questions. I will post two pictures of another cock he produced with the same blue bar splash hen. As a juvinile he looked like a classic tortise shell grizzle with a bronzy brown mottling on the wing shields. He moulted t-pattern grizzle with bronzing. I think it is undergrizzle that is at work as the wing flights have dark edges but white/grizzle radiating out from the feather shaft and hidden with the wings folded. 

Nest mate to the tort was a black spread grizzle with no white feathers but kind of a silvery lacing on the edge of each feather. She was given away and has subseqently died. This bird (posting now) is full brother to the black splash posted above (you can see him in the background of the second pic). I have been racking my brains trying to figure out all of the genetic factors hidden in the tiger sire.

Loonecho


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

There's three possibilities I'm thinking of:
- He's het tiger and het classic grizzle
- He's het tiger with undergrizzle
- He's het classic grizzle with piebald

I'm leaning more towards the first two, mostly the first one. The scratchy looking feathers normally moult out all white. Like the one I see on the wing of the second to last picture.


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