The CHARCOAL
Extracts from Zebra Finch News. ZFS of Australia. -- Article by David Myers.
The Charcoal mutation occurred in western Sydney, NSW, Australia around 1979.
In 1981 or 1982 a batch of 20 to 30 Zebras were offered for sale at "Featherdale Farm" in Doonside, by an unknown Zebra Finch breeder. Amongst the birds offered were 6 or 7 grey and fawn Charcoals. An employee Alan Turner acquired all of the coloured birds. That same day, Turner took the mutant birds to Les Stratfords place to show him. He photographed them (still retains those photographs). They clearly depict the same Charcoal mutation that is currently being bred.
Turner decided to keep the mutation for his own personal collection and efforts by other aviculturists to obtain the birds were unsuccessful. Most aviculturists were unaware that it even existed.
One of the first people to gain access to this black mutation was former Wentworthville pet shop owner Peter Poole. Joe Gaffa saw Poole's birds in 1989, just a few days after he received them from Alan Turner. He had a pair of Greys, a pair of Fawns and a pair of Whites, all Charcoals in the back of his shop.
Joe told me of the existence of this mutation in 1992 but it wasn't till September 1998 that I saw my first grey Charcoal male in his aviary in Sydney. He informed me that he had purchased it at Allan's Bird shop the previous weekend and that there was another fawn male mutant bird for sale. A quick trip, $20 and it was mine.
I knew I had something different.
About 2 months after I purchased my original mutant, I became aware of the whereabouts of another fawn Charcoal male and a grey Charcoal female. I was very keen to gain access to these birds, but, so were many others. To a man they were quick to inform me that their owner Geoff Hemmings, would not part with them.
In November, 1998 during a visit to a fellow aviculturist and media personality Don Burke's home to discuss the captive breeding of the Beautiful Firetail and the Red-eared Firetail Finch, Geoff Hemmings name came up in conversation. A phone call was made a few days later Geoff phoned and kindly agreed to lend me the two mutant birds.
That gave me two fawn Charcoal males and a grey Charcoal female.
A breeding program was set up with 3 primary aims;-
At the end of November 1999 we had produced nearly 80 birds carrying the Charcoal strain.
The mode of inheritance for the Charcoal Zebra Finch is autosomal recessive. It was late 1998 that the name was decided as Charcoal and I believe it to be appropriate to this mutation.
Description.
Adult Male.
General colour above including wings dark grey, crown of the head and nape of neck, dark grey; rump black; upper tail coverts black; shorter tail coverts black; tail feathers black; cheeks and ear coverts dark grey, separated from the bill by a narrow band of black (tears); lores black; throat and upper chest lightly barred black; lower chest, abdomen and under tail coverts black; flanks dark chestnut brown without spots; bill reddish orange, legs and feet orange yellow and eyes reddish brown.
Adult Female.
General colour above similar to male; rump black; upper tail coverts black; shorter tail coverts black; tail feathers black; cheeks and ear coverts dark grey separated from bill by a narrow band of black (tears); lores black; throat chest and abdomen dark grey, lightly barred horizontally with flecks of black; flanks and lower abdomen dark grey and under tail coverts black.
Juvenile.
Similar to the adult female, but smaller and slightly duller in colouration; juvenile males more heavily marked greyish black on chest and abdomen than juvenile females; rump black; upper tail coverts black; shorter tail coverts black; under tail coverts black; tail feathers black; lores region and tears black and bill black.
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Photographs by Ken Glasson.