Letter from Dirk van den Abeele

20/10/2009

This year I was invited by the Kalahari bird club to speak on their symposium on lovebirds. I was very honoured to be able to meet the lovebird breeders in the beautiful South-Africa and I was glad to accept this invitation. I arrived on Thursday and was picked up by Gerald and Albert on the airport. They took very good care of me and they showed me very beautiful things. On Saturday we started the symposium and I had to label the birds. Some birds were very good. There were even some beautiful Taranta with dark factor. These are birds that are even in Belgium very rare.

On Saturday I had the change to tell something about the mutations in lovebirds. There were a lot of questions under the breeders and one hot topic was the *blue* Roseicollis. Albert told me before that I had to mention that topic for sure in my lecture, because lots of breeders have questions on it. So I did. As I wrote in previous article, I tried to explain that this is no true blue mutation. It is a selection type of the turquoise and anticipation. But because some of them are really looking true blue the question is should we consider them to be blue or not. Maybe I was not clear enough in my explanation (apologizes for this) because after the lecture some breeders asked me if these birds have any value or are they worthless to keep. So I love to clear this out.

Are they blue? NO, scientifically speaking we are again distorting the truth and we can not call them blue. Imagine that this will be a problem when we come across a true blue.

But there is a good solution for it. Within BVA we therefore advocate to strictly adhere to the international conventions which state that a name used for a mutation which is not 100% correct should be placed between asterisks, e.g. *blue*. This ‘blue’ type and the real turquoise could then be judged as two different phenotypes at conventions. This way the original turquoise type would be reinstated and again appreciated during conventions and the ‘blue’ types would also have the opportunity to further develop and be judged as blue. The only condition is that the name is placed between asterisks. The moment that there is scientific prove that a true blue exists we can simply omit the * * and all ‘blue’ phenotypes will be judged and requested as true blue.

This way it is clear to everybody and the breeders are not misled and that it is the goal of these *blue* to breed them as blue but that they are only a blue phenotype and genetically speaking not really blue. A solution which is acceptable to everybody and which does not distort the truth. So in the BVA show is a complete series for this *blue* birds. So these birds has certainly there value.

I hope this is now more understandable for most breeders.

After the lecture Albert took me to Namibia and the Gemsbokpark. I was living in a dream. I cannot thank every one of you enough for this beautiful experience. I have enjoyed every minute of it.

Thank you very much and be sure I will never forget this wonderful time in your beautiful country.

Dirk Van den Abeele