SIZE
All the birds are medium sized and have pearl eyes,bull eyes or yellow eyes.Most of the performing birds are pearl eyed with good movements in the eye which i wonder how many would appreciate a talk on.
COLOURS
They come in different colors.
They have clean legs,offcourse birds with muffed legs are still in existence and accepted but not as much a clean legged bird would be.
SHAPE
Fanciers prefer a bird with good body shape and looks, let me put it this way..and compare it to an Indian cobra when standing errect and showing its hood.
INDIAN NAMES FOR TUMBLER STRAINS
Fanciers have named many birds after their colour,breeders and names which have continued to exist from centuries, remember King Akbar was a great fancier and many strains have originated and bred for performance over these years.Let me quote few names:
1.THARA-White self
2.JACK(ZAK)- Black self.
3.REGDHAR-Black Checkers.
4.DHUMA-Dirty Grey.
5.BHURI-Almond.
6.ROSHAN-Very light grey.
7.CHINI- Grizzle.
8.THIRUVAL-Bald head or white marking on head and last 3-4 primaries are white,rest of the body is grey barred.
9.SUBJA(SUBZ)- Barred or looks like a feral pigeon but has pearl or light yellow eyes.
FLIGHT DURATION
Our birds with training have good endurance and have shown great results like flying for 8-13 hours with few tumbles in the flight.
Indian tumblers are flown in the months of June and July with very few clubs organising the competion with fellow members and fanciers.We fly only one bird at a given time with 10 birds on the landing board,a judge is sent to the fanciers home by 6.00 am in the morning and the bird is released at half a mile distance from the home or somehwere nearby,10 birds with cut wings are put on the landing board before doing this, the tumbler to flly in the compettion receives a club seal on its tail and is realeased, the start time is noted in the form which the judge carries.Similarly the end time is also noted on the form when the bird lands after flight on the landing board.This happens during weekends at different fanciers home in different localities and the bird which has flown the longest duration is announced as the winner for that groups competion,the same continues for two months and at the end of the season the bird which has flown the longest duration is adjudged the champion of the year.