It is hard to believe that a bird as colorful and beautiful as the “normal” wild type Bourke could have been enhanced. But it has. Below are a few of our Bourke’s parakeets with their mutation names in the picture caption to help you learn, or identify what may be your favorite to keep.

Normal young male Bourke
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Normal male bourke from blue selection lines with a violet factor. Bourkes love to fly and don’t do well when clipped. They are wonderfully peaceful aviary birds. 
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The normal color variety of the Bourke’s parakeet still has a pink chest, lots of blue on the head (in males), on the rump, and at the shoulder. They also have beautiful scalloping on the wings in white, soft yellow, or peach color.

Young Opaline (Rosey) Bourke
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Opaline or sometimes called “rosie” Bourke hen, enjoying a rest on a sisal boing.
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Opaline is often called by its unofficial name. “Rosie”. The Rosie bourke has an all over pink color of varying degrees. Males often will have pink on the cheeks, with hens most commonly seen with gray ones.

Young blue selection Bourke male (sometimes called a Rainbow Bourke)
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Fledgling opaline hen with extra color a “rainbow bourke” recently flew to her new home. Her tail is short as she just came out of the nestbox… it is still growing.
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While the Opaline (Rosie) celebrates the pink in the bird, the Blue selection or Blue Opaline celebrates the blue. This is a trait by “selection” where the best specimens are kept to continue building on the color. We are in the very early stages of development with this, as we are doing it on our own, with varied and unrelated stock instead of imported ones. It is a slow process, but very rewarding.

Young Rubino Hen
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Rubino is the combination of a bunch of different mutations all in one bird. “Ino” which are the red eyed mutations, as well as an opaline mutation. They are very beautiful, and hard to find as when paired properly, low percentages of the clutch land on this color combination. We have one pair that could throw them, so feel free to send us an email to ask…. or visit our “Availability” page.

Although mutations are often sought after, we breed very conservatively never pair two red eyed birds together, and every pair has a wild type “normal” in the pair. This keeps the size of our birds up, and increases their health and longevity.