Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Lovebirds - The Colors of the Rainbow



Peachface lovebirds come in a variety of colors. Below are some thumbnails you can click on to see these beautiful birds. They are all Agapornis roseicollis. Remember, color mutations occur within the same species of lovebird, so you should never mix species! See below for some more information on the nine species of lovebirds.

Buttercup: Pied Violet Peachfaced Lovebird Mutation

buttercup

Sex: Male

Born: March 1996

Mother: American Cinnamon Violet Peachfaced Lovebird

Father: Blue Pied Peachfaced Lovebird

The photographs of Buttercup never quite catch his true colors. In natural sunlight the violet pied markings can be rather subtle, more so than in the top picture. The violet rump is quite dark. The next photograph (left) shows this. The right photo shows what a sassy little poser this bird is. Buttercup has a great personality. Even though I've tried to get him to "go wild" so he'll be a good father, he runs back and forth in the cage when he sees me, and remains quite tame. More pictures:

pied violet
Buttercup's back is beautiful!

Buttercup and his mate, Whisper.
pied violet and whiteface american cinnamon


Whisper is a very lovely whiteface American cinnamon. Her body color is very pale and she has a beautiful clean whiteface.

Buttercup had his first clutch of babies (with his beautiful seagreen wife Whisper who has a lovely whiteface) in early 1998. It took me a while to find a lovebird mate that was suitable for him. Two babies looked exactly like Buttercup, and even had his remarkably sweet personality! Their new owners are thrilled with them. One baby looked like the mother, and the other was a pied (mainly yellow with pale green pied markings like the coloring of his mother). All four lovebird babies had violet rumps.

Buttercup has since fathered numerous beautiful bambini!
Some are pictured below:
buttercup babies


babies
These recent babies were pied violets and pied American cinnamons (some of those were violet factors as well)

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