Sengal Parrot Yellow Tail Coloring

[pfinarffle]

I was wondering if any other owners have noticed yellow tail feathers in their fids. Here's such a feather in our PeeWee:



It's typically underneath some of his/her other tail feathers, so we didn't notice it until lately when he/she has been molting. I've been told this means he/she is likely a male. Anyone else hear of this before?

[Michael]

Looks like you're bird is special. I've never seen a Senegal Parrot with the top side of the tail feathers yellow. Sometimes around the bottom but never the top.

One thing to make sure is that a feather did not get broken and turned upside down. On my Senegal Parrot I saw a brightly colored wing covet feather pointing down while all the others have a dull bottom and bright top. Eventually I figured out that it somehow broke and got twisted around upside down and has remained there. So just something to keep in mind.

[pfinarffle]

I checked this afternoon as the feather became prominent after PeeWee glided down from his cage to be naughty and try to roam the dining room unsupervised. It's definitely not flipped in any way, just usually hidden under his/her more central tail feathers. Sounds like no one else has ever noticed such a thing?

[Suzzique]

I can't handle Martini to check but I will have my daugher check. But I've never noticed anything like that one him. Interesting though.

[pfinarffle]

Yeah, you really have to look at the top portions of the usually covered tail feathers. In fact, if you examine the photo carefully, the yellow part perfectly outlines how the more central tail feathers would be covering that yellow one. This means that, while s/he's just sitting there not fanning his/her tail, all you'd see would be the green. It's only when s/he uses his tail to fly/glide that the yellow shows itself as the tail fans. And I guess lately that one feather has been getting stuck for a bit before returning to regular position. I wonder if it isn't some sort of sexual dimorphism that only the species could notice while they're flying around looking at each other mid-air. I've always wondered how male and female Sennies could tell each other apart in the wild!

[pchela]

My Sennie has one tail feather that is yellow just like yours. And here I thought my guy was unique!

[pfinarffle]

My Sennie has one tail feather that is yellow just like yours. And here I thought my guy was unique!

Iiiiiinteresting! Is yours male or female? Looks like Kili, who's female, has no yellow tail feathers. I wonder if this is a male Sennie thing...

[Michael]

Yeah. I specifically checked Kili's tail and none of the tail feathers are yellow top or bottom. She is DNS sexed female.

[pchela]

Mine is a dna sexed male Sennie. It could be a male thing though I don't know why that would be. I've been curious if it will come back yellow after he loses it in a molt. I'll have to try to get a photo and post it on here. He hates for me to mess with his tail but I will try.

[Kathleen]

Speaking of DNA sexing... I learned recently that birds have sort of an opposite sex determination system than humans do.

Human gender is determined by the presence of sex chromosomes X and Y, XX (female) or XY (male) and males essentially determine the gender of the progeny. There are variants of this as well when people lack a sex chromosome or have an extra chromsome. (XO = Turner Syndrome, Klinefelter's Syndrome = XXY ... etc) And the presence of a certain gene called SRY will make a genetic female human develop male characteristics.

Apparently birds have a system that works in the opposite way, called a ZW system. The letters ZW are apparently used so that people do not confuse it with the XY system. Apparently female birds determine the gender of the progeny. Female birds are ZW, while males are ZZ. I imagine they use these to determine the sex of birds when birds are tested.