Hybrid Lovebirds

If housed together in captivity, lovebird species will interbreed and create hybrids. In the wild, their territories do not overlap. Peach-faced x Masked hybrid: the characteristics of the Peach-faced are dominant in this hybrid, with a darkened face (but not head), orange beak and slightly wider eye-ring from the Masked parent.

Hybridising lovebirds of different species with different behaviours can lead to confusion in the offspring. For example female Peach-faceds are the only birds to tuck nesting material in their rump to take back to the nest; the broad white eye-ring species carry individual strands in their beak, whereas the Black-winged lovebirds do not use any nesting material other than their own down feathers. These behaviours are inbred/instinctive rather than taught and hybrids can become distressed or frustrated.

Above is believed to be a (mutated) Masked cross with a Fischer's Lovebird (shown with a blue Masked mutation, possibly one of the parents, above right).

The offspring of Peach-faced crosses with white eye-ring species are usually sterile but crosses between white eye-ring species (eg Masked with Fischer or Nyasa) are usually fertile.