Tony's mutation

[birdguhl]

Hi you genetics geeks...

I wonder if you would be able to tell me what Tony's mutation is, please? He was a few months old in first pic and you'll see he was much lighter in colour and has got much darker as he matured. He is the one in the middle (hope it's obvious!) in 2nd pic. II hope these pics are good enough to let you see. Thanks!

[Deleted]

I'm going to take an uneducated guess at some sort of type 2 yellowface mauve.

[Hezz]

I think he is a goldenface. Mauve or violet, I'm leaning towards violet ... really not sure.

[Marianne Marlow]

Look how different Tony is in the two photos - amazing

[birdguhl]

Thanks, all! Interesting about golden face - I hadn't heard of that.

Apart from becoming much darker, t would seem that Tony has 'bleed through' which appears green in amongst the grey/mauve.

I think he is similar to Stace's Boo? (Anyone know anything of Stace and Boo?)

I just find it all very confusing. A section on Cute Little Birdies has a lot of info but not quite enough (dud links). But here

www.cutelittlebirdiesaviary.com/violet-budgies.html

there is a picture of a budgie (2nd pic, 2nd row down) which looks like Tony as a baby which is described as 'SF Violet, SF Yellowface I'

yellowfacedviolet, any thoughts?

[tweetiepiesmom]

Interesting! My Buddy has the same coloring as your Tony when he was young. As Tony has gotten older, it looks like he's getting some yellow/green color in his body. As Buddy has gotten older, he's get more grey in his body.

[yellowfacedviolet]

Aug 17, 2020 11:15:13 GMT birdguhl said:

yellowfacedviolet , any thoughts?

To my eye he's a single factor yellowface type 2 violet mauve.

Very interesting photos. Really demonstrates how perception of color can be affected by age and photography.

You mentioned the photos on cutelittlebirdies website. Most of those photos were taken back in the days of film with traditional cameras, which were unable to capture violet the way cell phone cameras can. So most of the violets on her site  look blue or mauve depending on the mutation. She actually mentions this somewhere on the site

[ffiscool]

Aug 17, 2020 15:41:42 GMT tweetiepiesmom said:

Interesting! My Buddy has the same coloring as your Tony when he was young. As Tony has gotten older, it looks like he's getting some yellow/green color in his body. As Buddy has gotten older, he's get more grey in his body.

Don’t we all, lol

[birdguhl]

Very interesting - thank you, yellowfacedviolet!

Those of you who took a punt were all in the right ballpark!

So a budgie can be both violet and mauve... Is it that violet refers to the immature colour and mauve after the mutation has fully expressed itself?

Do you know of a good website which explains all of these things?

[Deleted]

birdguhl If I have this right, mauve is blue with two dark factors, violet is a colour adding factor, so any colour can also have violet.

[yellowfacedviolet]

Aug 18, 2020 15:05:13 GMT birdguhl said:

So a budgie can be both violet and mauve... Is it that violet refers to the immature colour and mauve after the mutation has fully expressed itself?

Do you know of a good website which explains all of these things?

@sillycat84 already provided an excellent answer to your first question. Violet and Grey are the two color-adding factors that behave in the same manner. They become visual on blue birds but are barely/vaguely detectable on green birds.

Regarding your request for some reading material--here's a good overview on violets:

users.tpg.com.au/users/kyorke/violets.htm

Regarding the maturing-of-color factor, you raise an interesting question. Purportedly, the only visual violets are single and double factor cobalts, and double factor sky blues. (By factor we mean how many copies of the gene were inherited from the parents, one or two.) Mauves are usually dismissed in this discussion as maybe having a violet tinge seen in certain light. But Tony is not the first violet mauve I've seen that was more clearly violet-infused when young and much less so as an adult.

At a budgie society meeting that I attended years ago in New Jersey a veteran breeder raised this issue but I've never seen it written about. I suspect that it because breeders of violets don't consider mauves as 'keepers' and place them in other homes so they've been less studied and observed.

[birdguhl]

Wow - all very interesting - thank you. And complicated! I’m pretty sure I’m never going to understand all this! I suppose a lot of the knowledge people have is often gained through experience of seeing what happens in the course of breeding budgies alongside formal learning? Are you a breeder, yellowfacedviolet?

[yellowfacedviolet]

Aug 19, 2020 8:41:02 GMT birdguhl said:

Wow - all very interesting - thank you. And complicated! I’m pretty sure I’m never going to understand all this! I suppose a lot of the knowledge people have is often gained through experience of seeing what happens in the course of breeding budgies alongside formal learning? Are you a breeder, yellowfacedviolet ?

I don't consider myself one, though I've raised a few clutches over the past twenty-five years. But I only breed to attempt to 'keep things going' and so I can avoid having to bring any new birds into the house. In each clutch I keep the one(s) I want for the future and gift the rest to family, friends or interested parties who have inquired over the years.

[Marianne Marlow]

I bet you have quite a variety then. How many birds do you have?

Am I to take it that based on your name, the yellow faced violet is your favourite mutation?

Aug 19, 2020 15:07:57 GMT yellowfacedviolet said:

Aug 19, 2020 8:41:02 GMT birdguhl said:

Wow - all very interesting - thank you. And complicated! I’m pretty sure I’m never going to understand all this! I suppose a lot of the knowledge people have is often gained through experience of seeing what happens in the course of breeding budgies alongside formal learning? Are you a breeder, yellowfacedviolet ?

I don't consider myself one, though I've raised a few clutches over the past twenty-five years. But I only breed to attempt to 'keep things going' and so I can avoid having to bring any new birds into the house. In each clutch I keep the one(s) I want for the future and gift the rest to family, friends or interested parties who have inquired over the years.

[yellowfacedviolet]

Aug 19, 2020 15:25:40 GMT Marianne Marlow said:

I bet you have quite a variety then. How many birds do you have?

Currently 6. Which is about the max we can have given that we live in a NYC flat and my OH is not quite as enthused about all of this as I. In years past I pushed it to 8.