My Opals

Most of the Opals shown here are on the blue color base. None however, really appear to be blue. The bars on Recessive Opals are a rust red color. The tail with its metallic baring pattern is typical for all forms of blue Recessive Opal. The tail is one of the keys to identification and distinguishes it from its sometime look-alikes, Reduced and Dominant Opal. 

Dominant Opal (Od)   Dominant Opal (Od) is a dominant autosome, thus its name. Recessive Opal (o), as its name indicates, is a recessive autosome. Of the two, only Dominant Opal in the homozygous form (Od//Od) is lethal.  That is, when a bird receives a copy of this gene from both parents it becomes the kiss of death. These squabs often die in the egg or shortly thereafter. Od squabs will have long down at hatching.  Dilute Od squabs will be naked without down fuzz.     Blue dominant opal, heterozygous Gempel with white bars left, Blue dominant opal with white bars and checks on the right. Dominant Opal blue t-pattern left, dominant opal ash red t-pattern right. Since Od is a dominant gene it may express itself when only one heterozygous factor for it is had (Od//+). Note that I said may express itself, because it is often poorly expressed when in the bar or barless patterns. It will show some washing or whitening in the flights and tail with a pale tail band. In some cases the wing bars will look pinkish or have a pinkish line on the outer part of the bar. On some pigeons these bars may even be white. In the checker and t-pattern expressions, Dominant Opal becomes more vivid. It shows itself in any number of differing shades of cream, pink and orange hues. In checker and t-pattern it is one of the most striking of all modifiers. It losses this effect; however, when combined with Spread where it takes a washed out look, resembling a poor form of spread Opal.   Dominant Opal blue t-pattern Blue Indigo, Dominant Opal t-pattern  Below are some blue Dominant Opals from Steve Ceasar.  One bar pattern and three light checker patterns with white flights.  Bar pattern   Light checker pattern Light checker pattern with white flights. Light checker pattern with white flights. Note how little the dominant opal is displayed on this bird.  Like recessive opal, the amount of opal effect varies greatly from bird to bird.

Recessive Opal (o)   The other opal gene is Recessive Opal (o). Note that the genetic symbol has the same letter "o" as the other gene but in lower case. Genetic symbols are denoted in that way. In other words, the dominant genes are listed in the upper case while the recessive ones are given in lower case. This helps to keep their effects in mind while working out all the possibilities of their genotype (genetic make-up) and their phenotype (appearance). Recessive opal (o) has been a gene in the homing pigeon breed for a very long time. In fact, it may have been included in the genetic package of our earliest form of modern day homers. Joseph W. Quinn in his book "The Pigeon Breeders Notebook An Introduction to Pigeon Science" writes that between 1-2% of most strains of racers are homozygous opal o//o and that between 15 and 20 % carry the factor o//+. It first showed itself in my loft after several years of family breeding. Some of my birds were given to me by Walter Hulden (passed away at 93 years young) and they were said to produce some odd colored birds from time to time. Well I had them in my loft for over ten years before it first manifested itself. It came from an uncle // niece combination of spread blacks. Recessive opal spread is a very metallic pastel color on a spread blue or black pigeon. It varies in form, from very light, to medium, to almost black in shades. The tail is typical for the other recessive opal forms with a washed out color of gray and some baring throughout the tail feather's length and not just at its feathers end. The body feathers are often laced in a black or dark outline. Keep in mind that Spread is not a pattern gene but a modifier and effects the appearance of recessive opal patterns. With some recessive opals the black color of the birds pattern markings are changed into a rusty orange or reddish color.  This is called red phase recessive opal.   In t-pattern, it is almost a pastel red in pattern on an otherwise metallic gray body. The Hackle or neck is a metallic maroon to green luster. In the bared form, like the one shown above, it is often mistaken for an Ash Red bar or mealy.   In the blue checker and t-pattern phenotypes it takes on what I believe to be its most beautiful phenotype.  It produces a lot of pastel reddish pink and metallic coloration which is very striking indeed. Recessive opal as already stated is an autosome recessive gene. Autosome means it is found on a chromosome other than the sex (Z) chromosome. Therefore, recessive opal is not sex-linked. Both male and female must have two copies of the recessive opal gene (homozygous for the trait) for it to show its opal effects.   It is however, classified as a linkage gene for pattern.   Since this gene is located on the same chromosome as the pattern series of genes, they become linked to each other in the replication (reproduction) process.   The closer genes are to one another on the chromosome chain, the more likely they will remain together when passed on to the egg or sperm.    It appears that this gene and the pattern series genes are located very close as they are often passed along together.    A mechanism of crossing over does provide a means to reshuffle genes on the chromosomes but is less likely to occur when the genes are located close to each other.    So the two genes stay together. Example, if linked to bar it is passed along with bar; when linked with checker it stays with checker. Keep in mind, it takes two recessive opal genes to make a phenotype, so regardless of which pattern genes the bird carries, it will always be displayed in its dominant pattern form and only show recessive opal if both pattern genes are linked to an opal gene. In other words when (o//o) is present then it takes on the effect of the dominant pattern in recessive opal regardless of what the lesser dominant pattern is. Also keep in mind that Spread will always mask any and all of the pattern series effects. Recessive Opal Blue Phase Recessive opal blue phase are those that do not show very much red color in the pattern marking areas.  Those that do show a grater amount of red are known as red phase recessive opals.  Blue phase recessive opals can look very normal on their wing shields however their tails will show the typical webbing or barring effect of recessive opal.  They come in all patterns from barless to t-pattern.  Spread has an effect on recessive opal and changes the pattern into a metallic coloration with the typical opal tail webbing or barring. Spread is also an autosome gene. It is not in the pattern series but is dominant to all of them. It only requires one factor to display itself. So regardless of what the pattern underneath the spread is, a recessive opal with one or two factors for spread will show recessive opal spread. The birds shown here are Spread Recessive Opal on blue bar. Opals in my loft were originally in the bar pattern with most masked by spread. Since crossover takes too long and results in to many extra birds to feed I had to trade for some in both the check pattern and red phase. Dark phase spread on the left, and very dark phase on right (typically these are always hens)    Barless blue phase left, light check blue phase right. A blue phase rec. opal cock by Larry Davis Recessive Opal Red Phase Red phase recessive opals are genetically blue just as their blue phase counter parts are.  Why the pattern colors is red and not black we do not know for sure. Red phase recessive opals are found in all the typical patterns from barless to t-pattern.  Here the course spread of the pattern marking is turned into the opal red color.  The more pattern displayed the more opal red there is to be seen.  However when the spread factor is added, the red color of the course spread pattern area is masked by the effect of spread changing the course spread into smooth spread.  Since smooth spread is not displayed as red, there are no phenotypes for red phase spreads.  They are simply displayed  in the same color as the blue spread forms.    Barless red phase recessive opal left by Steve Souza and one of my red phase dirty bar hens on the right.     Red phase wing shield and tail pattern of the dirty bared bird above.  Note the ribbing pattern in the tail so common with recessive opal.    These two young red phase birds are from Tom Barnhart's loft. A red phase recessive opal bar hen by Ronda Mariani of Circle Loft