Racing Pigeon Colours & Patterns Explained: Blue Bar, Red Bar, Chequer, Grizzle, Pied & More

Stand inside almost any racing pigeon loft and one thing becomes obvious very quickly:

They don’t all look the same.

Blue Bars. Red Bars. Chequers. Grizzles. Pieds. Darker birds. Lighter birds. And sometimes a youngster appears in the nest that leaves even experienced pigeon men looking twice.

But pigeon colour is more complicated than simply calling a bird blue, red or white.

What you’re actually looking at can be a combination of:

base colour + wing pattern + genetic modifiers.

Once you understand that, the whole thing starts making considerably more sense.

Colour and pattern are not the same thing

This is probably the most important place to start.

When somebody says Blue Bar, they’re describing more than one characteristic.

Blue refers to the pigeon’s underlying colour.

Bar refers to the pattern displayed across its wings.

That’s why pigeons sharing the same basic colour can look completely different.

A Blue Bar and a Blue Chequer can both be blue-based pigeons while carrying very different wing patterns.

Likewise, a Red Bar combines an ash-red base colour with the bar pattern.

So instead of thinking of every pigeon colour as one genetic package, think of it as layers.

The three major base colours

At the major colour locus, domestic pigeons have three principal base colours:

Ash-red

This produces the family of colours commonly associated with Red Bars and other ash-red pigeons.

Blue/black

This is the wild-type colour and the foundation behind the classic Blue Bar and many Chequer pigeons.

Despite being called blue, the pigment involved is dark melanin. The structure and distribution of pigment through the feathers creates the familiar blue-grey appearance.

Brown

Brown is another major base colour, although considerably less familiar to many racing-pigeon enthusiasts.

And here’s where genetics gets interesting.

The major base-colour gene is sex-linked.

Male pigeons are ZZ.

Female pigeons are ZW.

That means cocks carry two copies of the major colour gene while hens carry one.

So colour inheritance can behave differently depending on whether the parent is a cock or hen.

What is a Blue Bar?

For many people, this is the classic racing pigeon.

A Blue Bar generally has a blue-grey body with two distinct dark bars running across each folded wing.

The blue/black base colour is the ancestral colour state, while bar is also considered the ancestral wing pattern.

Put those together and you’re looking at something remarkably close, in broad colour-and-pattern terms, to the ancestral appearance from which domestic pigeons developed.

That makes the humble Blue Bar far more interesting than its familiarity might suggest.

What is a Red Bar?

A Red Bar is generally an ash-red pigeon displaying the bar wing pattern.

And importantly:

Red Bar isn’t simply a Blue Bar painted red.

Ash-red is controlled by a variation affecting the major colour system and has its own inheritance pattern.

Ash-red is dominant over blue.

That means an ash-red cock can potentially carry blue genetically while still appearing ash-red.

Because the colour is sex-linked, breeding Red Bars can produce some particularly interesting inheritance patterns between cocks, hens and their offspring.

READ MORE: What Is a Red Bar Racing Pigeon?

That becomes our internal link to the article we’ve just made.

What is a Chequer?

Chequer — also commonly written checker internationally — describes a wing pattern where dark markings cover considerably more of the wing shield than they do on a Bar.

Instead of two clean wing bars dominating the pattern, numerous darker markings create the characteristic chequered appearance.

But even Chequers don’t all look alike.

Some are relatively light.

Others can be heavily marked.

And that brings us to another term pigeon people regularly use.

What is a Dark Chequer?

A Dark Chequer generally describes a heavily marked Chequer where the darker pattern occupies much more of the wing shield.

Some become so dark that, from a distance, very little of the lighter background colour appears visible.

There’s an important genetic reason for some of this variation.

Research into pigeon wing patterns has identified a major genomic region associated with the familiar pattern sequence:

Barless → Bar → Chequer → T-check

with increasingly dark pattern expression.

So those familiar loft descriptions have genuine biological mechanisms sitting underneath them.

What is T-check?

T-check is an even more heavily patterned form.

The name comes from the appearance created by the extensive dark markings on the wing.

In strongly expressed birds, much of the wing shield can appear dark.

To somebody unfamiliar with pigeon terminology, a heavily marked T-check can almost look like an entirely different base colour.

It isn’t necessarily.

That’s another perfect example of why:

colour and pattern must be considered separately.

What is a Grizzle pigeon?

Now things get really interesting.

Grizzle isn’t simply another base colour.

Grizzle is a genetic modifier that changes the distribution of pigmentation through the plumage.

The result can be a flecked, peppered or frosted appearance where lighter feathers are mixed through the underlying colour.

And because Grizzle operates over whatever colour and pattern the pigeon already carries, Grizzles can look dramatically different from one another.

You can therefore have pigeons where the underlying genetics involve blue, ash-red and different patterns while Grizzle modifies the final appearance.

That’s why saying simply:

“It’s a Grizzle.”

doesn’t necessarily tell you the whole colour story.

What does Pied mean?

Pied pigeons have areas of white plumage interrupting their otherwise coloured feathers.

The amount and location of white can vary enormously.

One bird might show only relatively small white areas.

Another might be predominantly white with only patches of its underlying colour remaining visible.

And here’s the important part:

Pied doesn’t necessarily tell you the pigeon’s underlying base colour or wing pattern.

A Pied pigeon can still genetically carry colour and pattern underneath those white areas.

So once again we’re dealing with another layer affecting the final appearance.

White pigeons aren’t necessarily all genetically the same

This is where pigeon colour genetics can become deceptive.

A pigeon that looks predominantly white doesn’t automatically tell you exactly what is happening genetically.

Different genetic mechanisms can reduce, remove or mask pigmentation.

That means two birds which appear broadly white can potentially arrive at that appearance through different genetic routes.

What you see isn’t always the entire genetic story.

Ash-red and recessive red are NOT the same thing

This catches people out constantly.

A typical Red Bar is associated with ash-red.

But recessive red is a different genetic trait.

Recessive red can produce intense red pigmentation and can mask the expression of other colour and pattern information.

So two pigeons somebody casually calls “red” can actually have very different genetics.

This is one reason proper pigeon colour terminology becomes important once you start breeding birds intentionally.

Why can youngsters surprise you?

Because parents can carry genetic information you can’t necessarily see.

A cock has two Z chromosomes and can therefore carry different variants at a sex-linked colour locus.

Recessive traits can also remain hidden until the right combination arrives in an offspring.

Add wing pattern, Grizzle, Pied, dilution and other modifiers into the equation and suddenly:

two perfectly ordinary-looking parents can produce something you weren’t expecting.

That’s when pigeon genetics becomes addictive.

You stop looking at a bird and simply seeing its colour.

You start asking:

Where did that come from?

Does colour affect racing performance?

This needs saying clearly.

There is no simple rule that says:

Blue Bars race better.

Or:

Red Bars are better.

Or:

Grizzles are faster.

Colour alone doesn’t make a champion.

Racing ability involves a complex combination of genetics, health, physical condition, training, motivation, loft management, experience and countless decisions made by the fancier.

A beautiful pigeon isn’t automatically a great racer.

And a great racer doesn’t need to be a fashionable colour.

The stopwatch doesn’t care what colour the pigeon is.

Why do certain colours become associated with particular families?

Selective breeding.

If a successful family happens to contain a recognisable colour or pattern, generations of breeding within that family can make the appearance increasingly familiar.

Over time, fanciers can begin associating particular looks with particular strains or bloodlines.

But appearance alone isn’t proof of ancestry.

Two pigeons can look remarkably similar while being genetically and genealogically very different.

Likewise, related pigeons can sometimes look surprisingly different.

Pedigree is pedigree. Colour is colour.

Don’t confuse the two.

The pattern hiding underneath the pigeon

One of the most fascinating things about pigeon genetics is that the bird standing in front of you is effectively the finished result of multiple genetic layers.

Imagine it like this:

BASE COLOUR
Ash-red / Blue-black / Brown

↓

WING PATTERN
Barless / Bar / Chequer / T-check

↓

MODIFIERS
Grizzle / Pied / dilution and others

↓

THE PIGEON YOU ACTUALLY SEE

That’s a simplified version of a much more complicated genetic system, but it’s a brilliant way to begin understanding why racing pigeons can look so incredibly different.

Look around the loft differently

Next time you’re standing inside a racing loft, don’t just see:

red pigeon.

blue pigeon.

dark pigeon.

Look at the bird properly.

What’s the base colour?

Is it Bar or Chequer?

Is another modifier changing what you’re seeing?

Could the bird be carrying something that isn’t visible?

And what could appear in the next generation?

Suddenly the colours inside an ordinary racing loft become a genetics lesson happening right in front of you.

And that’s part of what makes pigeons so bloody fascinating.

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