Transition from Pink to Blue cere for male budgie

[mona]

Breezie's cere seems to change color, post his last moult in December. He had pink cere for past one year. Since then, sometimes, I see a bit of blue between his nostrils, sometimes it seems the entire cere is transitioning slowly to blue or purple (?) color.. Today evening, it looked more blue/purple than pink to my eyes.

I'm hoping it's not a health issue.. I read up about cere color change, but it was all about baby budgies. Is it an age related change based on his mutation or any underlying health issue?

When I got them from the pet shop where their old owners had left them, I had asked the pet shop owner about their age.. But he wasn't aware of the exact age.. he said they would be around 8 to 9 months..

This is his image from yesterday..



This one is from today morning.. 




I'm not sure about the dark blue cheek feathers too..if they appeared after this moult or it took a darker color than before
Would have to find out older video/photos to compare.. but definitely, cheek feather wouldn't be an indication of any health issue..

[Morgan]

Hmmm, it could be normal - at least those colors are all male-specific.

My boy Xephy is over a year old now and still has a half-way purple-blue cere, and I sometimes wonder if it will ever become completely blue, or what? He’s a dominant pied, but with only one cheek patch on one side too. Pieds can combine in one bird too, like clearflight and dominant, but probably not recessive (unless it’s really only partially recessive, because many people make the claim that in different species of parrots, cockatiels also, you can tell if a bird is split to recessive pied. But I have no idea how accurate that could be. If the gene is truly recessive it would be false). So pied mutations can do weird, unpredictable things to birdies.

Cere color seems to be pretty closely connected to the bird’s hormones in general though, with certain mutations (like Breezie’s), usually not developing the blue cere. But perhaps his mutation allows for some slight change in color if he is coming into breeding condition, for example, as a male with a normal blue cere will develop a brighter, shinier, deeper blue one when they are in condition. Just a guess though.

[Hezz]

The males have breeding cycles as well; they just aren’t as obvious to us as the pale blue to brown of the hens, so the change very well could be due to increased in the levels of his hormones. If he was another mutation which does get the typically bright blue cere of the males, you probably would not have noticed anything.

[mona]

Thank you Hezz and Morgan
Glad to know that it's not a health issue.

[Marianne Marlow]

Agree, he's a recessive pied and their ceres don't go fully blue, so they can sometimes have little bits of blue but stay mostly purple.