# question about archangel colors.



## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

I see many pictures of archangels with the green colored, or dark heads. in fact I have a few of those myself(mostly the blues), the smokey gold(his head is an off shade of gold compared to the rest of the body), the dark check I posted about in a previous thread, one of my blue wings has a green head, and a bird i recently sold also had a green head with a copper body & blue bar wings. Are some varieties supposed to have the colored heads? Or are they mixes? My birds not only produce birds with colored heads, they also produce pure golds and coppers with gold and copper colored heads. 

Just wondering.


----------



## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

I don't think they are supposed to have colored heads. They are supposed to be either copper or gold (or recessive red/yellow/gold). But it can be hard to get that coloration really good so what you are seeing is probably just poor show quality, maybe not necessarily crosses.


----------



## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

There is a big difference between a green sheen on a copper head, and a green sheen on a blue head. All show standard archangels and gimpels have to have a solid single copper or gold color on the head, neck, breast all the way to the tail coverts (which also have to be copper / gold). The legs are allowed to have a little black at the knees, but the show standard requires the lags to be copper / gold.

Here are links to the first couple of results when looking for 'archangel pigeon pictures' on google. None of these pictures have any birds that do not have color as specified above.

Wikipedia
Breeder
Art
PigeonCote
Feathersite
RightPet


----------



## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

MaryOfExeter said:


> I don't think they are supposed to have colored heads. They are supposed to be either copper or gold (or recessive red/yellow/gold). But it can be hard to get that coloration really good so what you are seeing is probably just poor show quality, maybe not necessarily crosses.


I didn't think so either. personally i kind of like that poor show quality look on them. IHMHO they look prettier that way. 

that said, i think it would be wise to invest in a decent show quality pair somewhere down the line, or even breed for it, since some of my gold & copper babies don't have the colored heads.


----------



## chinbunny (Mar 1, 2010)

rudolph.est said:


> There is a big difference between a green sheen on a copper head, and a green sheen on a blue head. All show standard archangels and gimpels have to have a solid single copper or gold color on the head, neck, breast all the way to the tail coverts (which also have to be copper / gold). The legs are allowed to have a little black at the knees, but the show standard requires the lags to be copper / gold.
> 
> Here are links to the first couple of results when looking for 'archangel pigeon pictures' on google. None of these pictures have any birds that do not have color as specified above.
> 
> ...


What i meant was the ones with the pure colored heads.


----------

