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Peachfaced
Lovebird Mutations: Blue, Whitefaced Blue, Seagreen
 Not
surprisingly, Blue and Whitefaced Blue (WFB) create a lot of confusion
for people. The primary reason for this is that they are so closely
related, and many breeders simply don't understand what the differences
are. Many Blues are sold at bird fairs as WFBs, Seagreens are often
sold as Blues, and so on. Some of this is due to unscrupulous breeders
lying about what they're selling, but mostly it is simply because the
breeders don't know either.
Blue is the older of the two mutations, originating in Holland in 1963.
A bird which shows this mutation lacks most of the red and yellow
pigments which are present in a normally colored Peachfaced. However,
unlike the "true" blue mutation of the Masked lovebird, a Blue
Peachfaced still has some red and yellow pigment in its feathers, most
notably in the slightly creamy color of the face and the solid orange
band across the forehead. This "incomplete" elimination of the yellow
and red pigments is why this mutation is sometimes referred to as
"semi-blue".
 Whitefaced Blue
originated in the early 1980's. Like the Blue, it is not a "true" blue
mutation. A true blue would take ALL of the red and yellow pigment out
of the bird, but WFB still leaves traces of each color, though LESS of
each color than in the Blue. The face of a Whitefaced Blue is pure
white, though on the forehead, there is often still a faint orange
suffusion. This suffusion is considered a fault, for show purposes, and
top WFB show birds show little or none of this orange. If a true blue
existed in the peachfaced, combining that mutation with the lutino
mutation would produce a true albino, a pure white bird, with no trace
of yellow. When crossed with lutino, WFB and Blue each produce a bird
with visible yellow. The Creamino (A Blue Ino) is more fully a
yellow/cream color than the WFB Ino (Sometimes inaccurately called an
Albino), but the WFB Ino does have a good deal of yellow color in its
feathers.
 Contributing to the
confusion between WFB and Blue is the fact that they are "alleles",
meaning that they occur on the same gene of the same chromosome pair.
Thus, a bird can have 2 WFB genes, or 2 Blue genes, or 1 of each, but
cannot have two of each. When a bird has one WFB gene and one Blue
gene, the two interact to produce what is called a "seagreen" this bird
is frequently mistaken for, and sold as, a Blue, but actually is half
Blue and Half WFB. The face and forehead of the seagreen are
essentially identical to those of the Blue, but the body color is
closer to the color of a normal green bird. If you put a Blue and a
seagreen side by side, the body of the SG will be visibly more green.
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