Aussie Finch Forum

Can someone please clarify as to how to differentiate between the two?

Gary,
There is too much individual and sex-related variation between Black Fronted/Bodied and Charcoal for me to even have a go at this one. If you have a particular bird, or birds that you are unsure about, and you can post a photo, we can muster some help from the Zebra mutation experts. This has always been a grey area (pun) for me...

Going by the finch chart I've seen , the charcoal doesn't have white bars on its tail and possibly no cheek patches . South East Qld Zebra finch has good info of each mutation.

Hi Tass,
Yes,definitely,those are the standards to strive for but many, if not most cocks that I have seen in photos have feint and/or partial cheek patches and white spotting (rather than barring) on the tail. Having never bred Zebra mutations, I have no idea of what percentage of black or charcoal actually attain (or come close to) the standard. Perhaps some one can provide some more information on this and other points to look for.... when I looked into breeding Zeb mutations, I found all of this a bit too complex and pulled the plug on the idea... genetics has always been a weak point for me.

Garry - Muzza is an official of the WA Zebra finch society - try PMing him. I have a very interesting book written by Harry Doven that shows pictorially the differences. Again this is available for purchase in WA. I bought mine at the show in Mandurah where I got to see the differences in the feather so to speak. Before that I used to get very confused. Now I only get fairly confused so have to get the book out to check. Unfortunately what the info proved is that almost all my Black/Charcol are a mix of both.
LML

Black-bodied usually still have the orange cheek patches and some tail stripes whereas Charcoal usually have grey cheek area and black tail. BB still often have some slight Zebra Finch chest stripes whereas if Charcoal ones have any stripe markings they are more over a grey ground colour. Plenty of variation, but the cheeks usually give it away for mine.

Cheers.

Try this - it seems pretty good at explaining and showing.
http://www.seqzfs.org/charcoal.htm
LML