NPRA Glossary of Roller Terms
To submit a definition for a term commonly used in the Roller world, please Email us here. Any and all definitions will be helpful. Thank you to Jim Osche and the other NPRA Board Room participants for sharing the terms and definitions below. |
| The Hole -- When the bird is rolling, with velocity, there is the appearance of a hole, caused by the tail being bent towards the head and the wings fast movement. The visual is a donut hole, at one time viewed as the ultimate in velocity. |
| Tail Riding -- When a Roller leans back, but does not actually flip or roll yet falls towards the earth seemingly frozen in position. |
| Wing Switching -- The roller starts a roll with stronger strokes to one side or the other and then switches during the roll. The result is the bird moves back and forth, side to side, not considered a desirable roll in Birmingham Rollers. However, in Flying type Oriental Rollers this is a desirable trait. |
| Plate Rolling -- The roller pushes with one wing causing it to turn around on a horizontal plane, like a dinner plate. Again not considered desirable in Birmingham Rollers but is good in Oriental Rollers. |
| Rolldown -- A bird with no control of the spin, cannot pull out and hits the ground. If it hits with the proper velocity, it will only do it once. |
| Kit -- A group of pigeons flown together, usually 10 to 25 birds. |
| Kit Box -- A small loft with spaces for all the birds to perch and floor space to eat. Little or no room to fly around. Usually 3-4' square. |
| 1/4 Turn -- Flying a kit of 20 birds for example and 5 roll at one time. one fourth of the birds performing. |
| 1/2 Turn -- Using 20 birds in a kit as the example, 10 of them rolling at one time. |
| Full Turn -- All of the birds in the kit rolling in unison on a single break. |
| Waterfall Effect -- The kits begins to roll and the birds follow one another in the performance. The birds flow into performance rather than breaking all at once. Unison break is the desirable performance in competition. |
| Break -- Any number of birds performing at exactly the same time. |
| Open Loft -- A term for housing your pigeons all together, the typical is in the breeding season to have all your breeders together in a colony. |
| Backyard Flier -- The vast majority of roller flyers, fly them for their own pleasure in their backyard. |
| Sky Shark -- Birds of Prey that kill our rollers, the biggest offenders are Northern Goshawk, Coopers Hawk, Sharp Shinned Hawk, and the falcon family, Peregrine Falcon, Prairie Falcon. All federally protected! |
| Color Roller -- Usually used to describe a roller in atypical colors, "normal" colors would be the reds and blues, outside that would be color rollers. |
| Overfly -- Birds are mismanaged i.e., too much food, inclement weather, high barometer or combination of all. They are released and fly away, some may return but entire kits have been lost. Birds of Prey will also cause an Overfly at times. |
| Sky Out -- Your kit has been overfed, too fit and they fly so high you cannot see them well enough to enjoy them. |
| Inbreeding -- Breeding stock that is related closely to each other, father - daughter, mother - son, brother - sister. Usually described as breeding relationships found common is the first and second generation. |
| Line Breeding -- Common relatives in the background of both birds being usually 2nd generation and beyond maintaining a similar relationship in background or "line". |
| Out Crossing -- Breeding two birds that have no common relation in typically at least 4 generations. |
| Soft Color -- Usually defined in rollers as those colors not in the typical red and blue family. Example yellow or reduced. I would like to note here that the terms "hard" and "soft" when referring to color can be subjective and I think Jim gave excellent definitions here of them. There is no set-in-stone list of hard and soft colors in Rollers. Bob M. |
| Hard Color -- Ash Red in checks, bars and blue in checks and bars. Interestingly a spread blue, black would be considered a hard color but a red spread, lavender would be considered by many to be a soft color. Most of the background for these descriptions comes from early breeders of rollers with little or no genetic knowledge. |
| Cull -- A bird deemed unworthy of breeding from by the breeder for any reason. Each individual breeder will define a cull differently but, basically, it is a bird the breeder cannot or will not breed from. |
| Out Bird -- A bird that, while flying with a kit, does not stay with the kit. An out bird will be some distance from the kit most or all of the duration of fly time. |
| Stiff Bird -- Birds which are inbred too heavily can become stiff. Stiff birds are birds that do not roll or roll very shallow. |
| Dropper -- Droppers are generally other breeds of Pigeons used to bring the kit down. Droppers may be Fantails, Frills, etc. Birds that are not good fliers and are lighter or brightly colored so as to attract attention from the kit. |
| Kit -- A group of Rollers flown together. A kit consists of 2 or more birds that fly together in a group. When talking about Rollers and their ability to kit, we refer to birds that stay with the group. Birds that kit well stay in a close group for the duration of the fly. |
| Velocity -- The speed at which the bird rolls. |
| Frequency -- The number of times a bird goes into the roll either during the time the bird is flown or can be measured per minute. For example, a bird may roll twice a minute. This is frequency. |
| Depth -- The distance a bird falls during the roll. The most accurate way we have to measure this is 10 feet per second. If you are watching a bird roll and can time the bird for , say 3 seconds, the bird probably has rolled a depth of about 30 feet. |
