Distinguished pigeon fancier
and author Tony Glew has commented on the lack of information on the African
Owl in Feathered World. Brunners are his first love and rather than write about
a breed which is not his ‘number one’ he has unearthed a series
of articles written over sixty years ago by by W. Watmough and published in
Pigeons and Pigeon World which became Feathered World.
THE AFRICAN OWL – PART 1
The African Owl is one of the most popular of
the short-faced breeds of exhibition pigeon. No variety could ever take its place
in my affection. It is a pigeon of grace, character and charming curvature. It
has a personality, and anyone who falls in love with it, as I did many years ago,
will love it for all time.
A good African is small – not tiny, but not so large that the term ‘medium
size’ would currently define it. It should have a round, broad, full head;
a short, stout, correctly-set beak; a small, heart-shaped wattle, a bolting eye
in the centre of the head; a fine cere; a short, full neck; a wide, full back;
a graceful sweep of breast line, with the chest broad and well rounded, giving
a cobby appearance; a short tail; short flights carried above the tail; a full
gullet; a frill; short legs and small feet; close fitting feather of silky texture;
and its carriage should be jaunty with the head directly above the feet.
The colours in which African Owls are produced are black, white, dun, red, yellow,
blue, silver, mealy, lavender, cream and chequer, and the pieds of all these colours.
We often see a bird which is between a silver and a cream, but more dun in hackle
and bar, and for which ‘dun-barred silver’ is a fairly good definition.
Having given to my readers a brief general description of this product of North
Africa, I will now describe in greater detail all its show properties.
HEAD. The points which constitute the head are of paramount importance. An Owl
excelling in body and feather but failing greatly in skull will never win a prize,
but one excellent in head but with a body of feather fault may be successful.
I am no one-point faddist, and I agree that our judges should take the tout ensemble
into consideration and give to minor properties their just due, but the fact remains
that head is the most difficult feature to breed to a high degree of perfection
and, therefore, it is to head that the greatest credit must be given both in the
show pen and breeding loft. I will now analyse the head’s component parts.
PROFILE. The profile is the outline from the tip of the beak up the frontal, over
the top, and down the backskull to the nape of the neck. If one point of compass
were placed on the eye and the other on the beak and a circle drawn the profile
of the head should exactly fit that circle. And if a line were drawn perpendicularly
and just touching the front of the circle, that line should make its contact with
the foremost point of the bird’s frontal and not with the beak. This is,
of course, the ideal description, and it is a test which even many very excellent
and successful Africans could not pass.
In order to have a perfectly round profile not only must the head itself be circular,
but the beak and wattle must be so shaped that their outlines do not break the
desired rotundity.
It should be appreciated that many a round headed adult was not so round when
it was a youngster, and that when examining a first-year bird allowances for development
must be made. (To be continued)
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