Darkwing is a dominant mutation first discovered by the Mason Brothers in 1930-31. The story began with a shipment of wild budgies, which included some with a lighter body color. The pair purchased and bred some of these birds, resulting in several similarly-colored nestlings. The name Greywing Yellow was given to these early birds, which was incorrect since they weren’t Greywing at all but instead a combination of Darkwing and Dilute (pictured). They were later called Australian Clearbodies before it was discovered that two separate mutations were involved, upon which Darkwing was properly identified. Today, this mutation is very rare in part because of its original misleading name.
The Darkwing mutation lightens the markings and tail just slightly. The SF forms have dark grey markings, while DF forms have almost black markings. It only shows up when combined with another dilution mutation like Dilute or Clearwing.
The parents of the first Darkwing clutch happened to be a combination of Darkwing and Dilute, which would ordinarily be very rare for wild budgies, but more likely since Darkwing is invisible on non-dilutes. This means that wild mutations may be much more common than previously thought.
