by Pajarita » Sun Jun 05, 2022 10:04 am
Welcome to the forum! I am afraid that those are not lovebirds, they are Australian Budgerigars, aka budgies, aka parakeets. Which is lucky because you can visually sex budgies but you really cannot lovebirds (well, you can if it is a sex-linked mutation or if you have a male/female bonded pair during breeding season because males have different breeding behaviors from females and, generally, the female is bigger than the male). Now, with budgies, it depends on the age because the best indicator of gender is the color of the cere (the fleshy 'moustache' above the beak) but it changes when the bird goes from baby to juvenile. In healthy adults (and notice I say 'healthy') and in almost all mutations (albinos are different), the males will have a blue or lilac cere while females will have a flesh colored/pink or crusty brown cere (the last indicates the female is in breeding condition) BUT, when they are babies, the females will have a blue cere... sometimes you can tell because although the cere itself is blue, they also have a white ring around the nostrils but it depends on the mutation.