Standard Colours

The need for consistent terms...

- Mike Ashton

How do you describe a colour? And how can you be definitive about the colour of a feather? The traditional method was to use the good old simile, the method used by poets and literary critics for centuries. It compares something variable or abstract with something concrete that you can see, smell, hear etc.: ‘ . . . as big as a house’, ‘ . . . as black as soot’, ‘. . . as blue as the sky’.

So far, so good, but when it comes to poultry standards there can be all sorts of pitfalls. Recently I have been looking at the precise colour descriptors of a mallard drake’s chest feathers. These are beautiful, especially in the new adult plumage and when seen in full sunlight. Some people say they are just ‘reddish brown’ or ‘chestnut’. Others describe them as ‘claret’. It is difficult to get the real complexity and richness of such a colour. And, anyway, what colour is claret?