# Ferals At The Park



## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

Terry


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## maryjane (Jul 15, 2006)

They sure look healthy. That white one especially looks nice and clean, which is always good to see.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

maryjane said:


> They sure look healthy. That white one especially looks nice and clean, which is always good to see.


The white one is banded .. I just haven't been able to catch her or get close enough to read the band  Yes, the park flock is in very good health, plump, and nice and clean.

Terry


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

They are very beautiful pigeons.


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2008)

ooo I like that ****** , that first one is very interesting looking too  but that band just looks like a plastic clip on to me , hope you catch it just the same


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

LokotaLoft said:


> ooo I like that ****** , that first one is very interesting looking too  but that band just looks like a plastic clip on to me , hope you catch it just the same


I belive there's a pink band on the birds left leg. Think that's the band she's trying to read.


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2008)

yes sorry I ment it looked like a plastic pink color clip on band that people use for marking sexes or mated pairs  just looks to small to be a identity band in my opinion but one can never tell , still hope she catches it ,why Im not sure lol but it would be a fine addition to her collection


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

LokotaLoft said:


> yes sorry I ment it looked like a plastic pink color clip on band that people use for marking sexes or mated pairs  just looks to small to be a identity band in my opinion but one can never tell , still hope she catches it ,why Im not sure lol but it would be a fine addition to her collection


No........I see the band that you are talking about........I meant the birds "OTHER" left leg.........(on the right looking at the picture)..........not sure, but I THINK there's a band on that leg too.


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## Guest (Jun 25, 2008)

mmm I still dont see it but um maybe I will get myself a drink and then I might see it better  lol


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## bluecheck (Aug 17, 2006)

Personally, I'm much more impressed by the bronze bar white flight than I am by the white. That's prettier than anything we got in our ferals around my house.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

bluecheck said:


> Personally, I'm much more impressed by the bronze bar white flight than I am by the white. That's prettier than anything we got in our ferals around my house.


Told ya, Frank .. you need to make a road trip to the duck pond here. There are a LOT of unusually colored ferals in the flock! Was trying to get a pic or two of the pigeons with brown or bronze .. there are quite a few of them in the feral flock as well as one red.

The white one is domestic .. 

Terry


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Lots of bronze*

I'm surprised to see all of the bronze in the feral pictures that people have posted. I agree with Frank that the one with the white flights is especially interesting. The white looks like a Homer to me.

I don't see alot of feral birds but there is a small flock of them that seem to live under a bridge and probably the farm that is a short distance from the bridge and river. There is a set of power lines over the bridge and the whole flock sits there from time to time. I've watched this flock change from mostly blue bar and blue check to mostly white and pure white. This is over about a 25 year period of time.

An old friend of mine raised white Homers about a block away from the bridge and the white transformation has been from the influence of his birds that would become ferals. I can remember seeing the white Homers among the ferals and then the mixing of the colors began to appear over time. My friend moved away 10 years or so ago but his little legacy of pigeons lives on. It's been interesting to watch this flock of birds over the years.



Bill


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

jbangelfish said:


> I'm surprised to see all of the bronze in the feral pictures that people have posted. I agree with Frank that* the one with the white flights is especially interesting. *
> 
> Bill


DITTO that one stood out for me too, quite striking!! 

Thanks for sharing, Terry.


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## Garye (Feb 20, 2005)

Yes the first one is stunning. Very beautiful wings. I've never seen anyone like that around here. Though I'm beginning to see a couple of bronzes here and there from time to time. The redheads last about a month and then disappear.

It's always a surprise when I see a redhead in the flock. They stand out so much.


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## bigislerollers (Jan 20, 2008)

Aloha Terry,

That bronzed check bird is very interesting. 
You mentioned that there was also a red pigeon in that flock. Do you know if it is ash red or recessive red? I would be interested to see a pic of that bird if you have one. I'm have a feeling that the red in that flock would be recessive red, and that is what is adding all the bronze to the birds there. 
Maybe, maybe not.
Doesn't really matter.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

bigislerollers said:


> Aloha Terry,
> 
> That bronzed check bird is very interesting.
> You mentioned that there was also a red pigeon in that flock. Do you know if it is ash red or recessive red? I would be interested to see a pic of that bird if you have one. I'm have a feeling that the red in that flock would be recessive red, and that is what is adding all the bronze to the birds there.
> ...


Hi Dexter,

I don't know about the red one, but I do have pics .. will have to find them and post. I just rescue and rehab them .. doesn't matter to me what color or feather pattern they are .. they get help if they need it. 

I am a picture taking maniac at times and I do know I have the red feral and will try for some others.

Terry


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## bigislerollers (Jan 20, 2008)

TAWhatley said:


> Hi Dexter,
> 
> I just rescue and rehab them .. doesn't matter to me what color or feather pattern they are .. they get help if they need it.
> 
> Terry


Aloha Terry,

Thats what makes you and a lot of the others on this forum very special.


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Hi Dexter*

I don't think it has anything to do with recessive red or ash red as I'm not aware of these colors showing themselves as bronze. I have black pigeons that are split for recessive red and you'd never know it to look at them.

This looks more like a color from a Starling, or German Toy type to me but there are so many bronzes that it seems impossible to me to sort out where it came from. Frank is very good at figuring out which bronze is which. This bronze looks like many, including Modena but the Toys are better candidates for going feral and breeding into wild flocks as they are very good at flying wild and foraging. Still, purely a guess on my part.

As has been mentioned, it doesn't really matter but here in the genetic forum, I find it fun to try to sort things out and understand how these things come about.

Bill


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## bigislerollers (Jan 20, 2008)

"As has been mentioned, it doesn't really matter but here in the genetic forum, I find it fun to try to sort things out and understand how these things come about.

Bill "

Aloha Bill,

You are so right about the fun and challenge in trying to sort out the genetics in these pigeons. I'm still very new to this and trying to learn as much as my little brain will let me. 

I know you're right about it being some type of bronze responsible for that coloring on the bird, but I also found in the rollers that I raise that if they carry recessive red they express a lot more of the bronze coloring. I don't know if there is a link or not but I'll keep watching for it and see what happens.


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Aloha*

A lot of recessive reds have had bronze bred into them to intensify their color and I think this is what you are seeing in your birds. It is not the recessive red that shows, it is the bronze. Bronze is very strong and will influence colors for many generations, if not forever.

I have birds that are ash red bronzes and I used to think that they were just bronze. I have read up on things alittle more lately and now realize that bronze is not in itself a color. It will always be mixed with something and can enhance or intensify many colors. It's more like an overlay but blends the most with red (or yellow) and makes for really dark reds. I believe Carneau are like this as are Rchev Startails and probably many others.

There are at least 8 different bronzes and I think there should be more. I'm not sure why opal, indigo and maybe even ember would not make the list of bronzes. Maybe Frank will jump in and make sense of this.

Bill


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## bluecheck (Aug 17, 2006)

Okay - here's what I know about bronze -- it ain't tons either. Bronze ahs sent stronger folks than me screaming into the night. Bronze is an admixture of reddish and black pigment., -- if black (melanin) is normal (wild-type) pigment and if red pigment (phaeomelanin) is a mutation (sort of sand in the gears), then bronze is something sort of half-way. We can consider it to be only partial sand in the gears and, oh by the way, it can happen at various points along the normal pathway to creating the wild-type melanin.

Therefore there can be lots of bronzes, each of which is the result of a different mutation. So even though the end result (bronze) is almost identical looking because it's the result of a mix of black and red pigment, the reasons for it (the mutations) may be very, very different. Some may interact and produce a "redder" looking bird, some may not interact; and some may actually interfere with each other and produce less bronze in the progeny.

We DO NOT know everything we need to know about the bronzes and there is still a lot to learn about them. We're not even sure that we have them all clearly defined and that there aren't others out there.

The bird in question, the feral in the park, does look to be something that we see in the German Color Pigeons, but it would take some breeding tests to accurately determine that. Heck, we're still taking the Color Pigeons apart (genetically) to see what they're made of. remember, for a few thousand years we knew nothing at all about genetics and we just stuck things together that sort of looked right to get what we as breeders wanted. Even today, there is still more art than science to breeding the "perfect" bird. In nature, similar things happen so long as selection is at work.

As for the recessive red and bronze stuff - yeah, we often see bronze expression more deeply when recessive red is in the mix (heterozygous in the bird). It also depends on the other factors present. For example - did you know that you can instantly tell a heterozygous recessive red youngster the day it's born if it's also carrying smoky? Het rec red smoky babies have a red beak ring at hatch instead of a black one. 

There are LOTS of ways all of you could help the genetics study of pigeons. Start to just keep records of what the babies look like at birth. There is almost no data at all on that. What color is the beak ring? What color is the down? How long? How short? What color skin? etc.? We know that homozygous dirty (V) birds often have dark skin, but what about everything else? What about when one mutation is combined with another? There is still a vast, vast amount of ignorance that we have to clear up about our pigeons. Now that's just in some domestic stock that we have been trying to "perfect". When we get to a feral population that not only may have much of the gene pool of the domestics, but may also have had a lot of mutations that have happened out there that we don't know exist, then we are in for a fun haul to try to untangle it all

Frank Mosca


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## bigislerollers (Jan 20, 2008)

Aloha Bill and Frank,

Thank you both for sharing your knowlege here. 

I've got a whooooole loooooot to learn.  Let the fun begin.


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## TerriB (Nov 16, 2003)

Good looking bunch of birds there, Terry. How wonderful to see such a healthy feral flock!


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

Wow! Interesting post, Frank! Thank you!

Here's some photos of the fuzziest (longest down) baby that I've ever had come my way.

http://www.rims.net/2007Dec27

http://www.rims.net/2008Jan01

http://www.rims.net/2008Jan08

I am usually almost anal retentive about taking pictures of babies and their progress .. I might have some interesting photos in my bazillions of pictures .. will look .. 

Terry


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Neanderthal?*

Wow, that's one furry little guy. I'll bet Frank will have some incite into that.

Bill


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## Insomniac (Aug 21, 2007)

There are A LOT of very beautiful feral pigeons in Edmonton, a lot of reds and bronzes, grizzles, etc. I'm going to start carrying my camera and take some pictures.


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## bluecheck (Aug 17, 2006)

_*"Wow, that's one furry little guy. I'll bet Frank will have some incite into that.

Bill "*_

Actually, Bill I have none at all. As I said, we know that dilution (d) and almond (St) and many of its alleles cause short down. We know that pale (p), an allele of dilution, causes medium down, but aside from that, we really don't know a heck of a lot about down length at all.

I do know that one Dutch breeder, can't remember his name right now, has found that dark colored, almost orange, down seems to be linked or caused or something by iridescence. He wrote that dark orange colored down birds usually grew up to be very, very iridescent as adults.

That's the trouble. Very few of us, including me, keep the information and the birds long enough to correlate one thing with another. I'm not kidding when I say there is a great science project in this that could run for a few years or more for anyone who'd like to keep pics, data, and the birds long enough to see what the adult plumage phenotype is. After we get some baseline data, maybe we can even move into breeding tests, etc. One thing we have to remember is that down color is almost assuredly not something that's been selected for purposely by breeders. They're only interested in the adult birds either for show stock or flying stock. So any down color, length, is likely just something carried along due to whatever selection is being practiced on the adults. In the feral population and to a lesser extent in domestics, down length MAY be something selected for as helping the youngster live in certain temperatures or whatever. I don't know, again, because I've never seen any data.

BTW - I used to have a lot of books - all lost now because when I lost my house, I put them somewhere and they were trashed. One of them was a book called Feral Pigeons. It's now VERY expensive, but it's one of the most thought provoking and hard science looks at ferals worldwide and includes a lot of information on phenotypic differences in plumage survival rates of youngsters and adult breeding success.

Frank Mosca
http://www.angelfire.com/ga3/pigeongenetics


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Fuzzy wuzzy was a squab
Fuzzy wuzzy....'s...name was Bob? Lol 
Works much easier with 'bear' instead of squab.

That is one fuzzy baby. Never seen any like that. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like once it gets its feathers


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2008)

fuzzy squabby was a bird , fuzzy squabby squeaked his words , fuzzy squabby liked wasabie wat a bird was fuzzy squabbie .. you right fuzzy wuzzy was so much easier lol


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

bluecheck said:


> BTW - I used to have a lot of books - all lost now because when I lost my house, I put them somewhere and they were trashed. One of them was a book called Feral Pigeons. It's now VERY expensive, but it's one of the most thought provoking and hard science looks at ferals worldwide and includes a lot of information on phenotypic differences in plumage survival rates of youngsters and adult breeding success.
> 
> Frank Mosca


I was fortunate enough to be given a brand new copy of Feral Pigeons about a year or so ago. Frank is right .. there is a wealth of incredible information in it. 

Terry


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