Buckeye Fancy Feather Club - Canfield, OH

[Mike Gilbert]

Mike...yeah, probably my lack of photo skills. Any comments about the black?

Love the broad feathers in the tail, and assume the primaries and secondaries would be wide too.   Really like his condition and green sheen, red comb, etc.    I just think he has a little more length of the main tail than he needs, and it could blend in with the back a tad better, more like your RB LF Blue male.   Great comb on that blue by the way, but he just doesn't have the width of feather as the black.  Blues almost never do.  Also, the two main sickles are to extend beyond the main tail, and I'm not seeing that in the photo of the black.  The shape of the tail is a bit awkward in that particular pose.   Don't worry, some of my brown reds are the same way.   It's nothing too major.  Congratulations on a fine win.   

[Debbie]

Just a quick comment to keep this discussion alive.   Photos seldom tell the full story.   Getting a bird to pose in its natural position is a time consuming and often difficult task.   So this observation is directed at the photo, not the bird or its owner.   The bantam wheaten hen photo provides a perfect example of an incorrect bantam female tail.   By that I mean it is fan shaped and carried too high.   The correct tail would be carried at about 40 degrees or so above horizontal and would be neither pinched nor fan shaped from the side view.

Thanks for the input! She does tend to lift and fan her tail when agitated. I have another female who is more on the pinched side of the spectrum. I'm hoping between the offspring of both I can even them out? I love having my birds kindly critiqued, there is no betterway for me to learn!!!  I know it's hard to do from photos. My birds never seem to want to cooperate to give accurate photos either.