By JUDY HIGGINSTHE clearwing has been aroundsince the 1930s, having first ap-peared in the aviaries of HaroldPier in NSW.

The variety gained popularitydue to the striking contrast of theyellow or white of the wingsagainst the green or blue of thebody colour.

Clearwings are small birds com-pared to normal varieties seen onthe show bench but, due to thededication of some breeders andthe formation of special clubs tocater for clearwing breeders, theyare showing signs of improving insize and quality.

There are many theories onhow to improve clearwings.

As a breeder of clearwings I cansay with confidence and from per-sonal experience that it takes alot of time and patience.

The aim when breeding clear-wings is to breed perfectly cleanwings that do not display anymarkings.

Because of the contrastbetween white wings and a violetbody or yellow wings and an olivebody, those colours are popularamong clearwing breeders.

The dark factor tends to lead tosmaller birds, so breeders have tomake wise pairings when theyoutcross in order to introduce andretain size in their line.

If you own a clearwing andwould like to use it to build up aclearwing line there are a fewoptions to improve on the quality.

I prefer to use normal birds. I feel that it is important to use

a pure normal, not one that is car-rying any other variety in hiddenform.

A cock bird could be carryingboth sex-linked (for example opa-line) and autosomal recessive (forexample greywing) genes withoutit being evident.

A hen can carry recessives, but

not any of the sex-linked vari-eties.

Because it is preferable not tointroduce any of those varietiesinto the line, careful selection ofpartners to pair with your clear-wings is important.

If the greywing is introduced toa clearwing the result is a com-posite bird which is not a trueclearwing.

Any clearwings with greywingin them have varying degrees of“dirty” wings and you would not

Clearwing budgiesgetting bigger

expect to breed quality clean-winged clearwings from them.

Having started by breedingclearwing to normal, all chicksproduced will be split for clear-wing.

When they are ready to breedthe next step is pair the best splitback to its parent and make somebrother-sister pairings.

The clearwing to split pairingwill produce visual clearwingsand the rest of the chicks will besplits, so that is an economicalpairing.

The expectation from the splitto split pairing is for only one infour to be a visual, but if the splitsare of good quality that is still aworthwhile pairing at this stage.

Having increased your stock sothat you now have both visualclearwings and a number of splitsit will be important to select thelargest of the splits and the larg-est normals to pair back to visualclearwings so that you can contin-ue to produce better quality birdssplit for clearwing as well as morevisual clearwings.

I have been told that anothervariety that may be used as anoutcross is the spangle, which Iam told will increase the size ofthe clearwings without markingthe wings.

I have yet to try that, but Iintend to do so this year. I was alsoadvised by a well known clear-wing breeder to use Englishdilutes as another alternative.

I tried that, but found I pro-duced too many chicks with dilut-ed body colour and incorrectlycoloured cheek patches, which Icould not use.

A good breeding program forany recessive variety takes aboutfive years, with the amount ofimprovement dependent largelyon the quality of the normal birdsused to produce splits.

That is why we always stipulatethat the best normals should beused to produce splits for anyrecessive breeding program.

If you use small normal birds,

because the clearwing is usuallysmall, you are likely to producesplits that are even smaller thanthe normals.

This can be very discouragingto a breeder trying to establish anew line.

Because the idea is to improvethe variety, careful selection ofbirds used to establish your clear-wing line is vital.

I recommend selecting yourlargest normal bird or your larg-est spangle to pair to your clear-wing and then line breed withthem until you produce a worth-while line to continue with.

When I started my line of clear-wing splits a few years ago I exhib-ited a normal split for clearwingat a show as an unbroken cap andthe judges were so impressed withthe chick that he was awardedbest young bird at show.

When I told them it was split forclearwing they were veryimpressed and were anxious to seeany of his offspring.

He is a very large normal greenwith a deep mask and plenty ofback skull, which is a particulartrait missing on most clearwingsexhibited today.

That cock has now producedsome good quality clearwingsthat are being used in my five-year breeding program.

Retaining good breedingrecords is important to any breed-er who has birds that are normalsplit for another variety.

Most breeders who have a num-ber of recessive varieties use plas-tic coloured split rings to differen-tiate between their splits.

They are available in a range ofcolours and the breeder createscolour codes to cater for the vari-eties bred.

Split rings are placed on theopposite leg to the closed alumini-um ring and can be applied withan applicator to young chicks oradult birds, which makes identifi-cation of splits easier.

Breeding split to split hasadvantages and disadvantages. On

the plus side the visuals producedmay be of good quality if theycome from two large splits.

On the down side the statisticalexpectation is for only one chickin four to be a visual clearwing.

Of the others one in four will bepure normal and two in four splitfor clearwing, but because it isimpossible to differentiate bet-ween them without breedingthem on they are sold off as nor-mals.

I don’t waste time or breedingcabinet space on such long odds.

Breeding visual to split pro-duces all birds that can be poten-tially used in the ongoing pro-gram because they will be visualclearwing or split for clearwing.

I like to introduce a new bloodline each year, again selecting thebest normal available – hopefullyone that is superior to the firstnormal introduced.

Some breeders may feel newblood should not be introduced asoften as that, but I have found thatby breeding split to split thechicks improve more quickly andI can see the faults that requireattention.

The Clearwing BudgerigarSociety of Australia has represen-tatives in every state, who willassist in acquiring clearwings tobreed with, together with breed-ing information.

Clearwing society state con-tacts are: ACT Geoff & Ann Hand02 6238 1629, NSW Warren Wilson 029747 6642, Qld Sth David Cook 073277 8986, Qld Nth Peter Wilson 074777 3057, SA Barbara Fisher 08 82887936, Tas Derek Poole, 03 6391 2065,Vic Bruce Wilson 03 9702 8070, WAJudy Higgins 08 9402 7161, clear-wing@budgeri garrare.com.

People who join the clearwingsociety will receive a free pair ofclearwings to help to get themstarted.Reprinted from the February 2006

edition of Talking Birdswww.talkingbirds.com.au