Dear Paul,
Really nice lovebird images from Moru, they show very obvious
Fischer’s characters;

Firstly the colours look more vibrant than those of Ndutu, which
although bright colours lack any brilliance within the plumage.

Although the upper bird shows darkening on the face, I hope that in
this instance that it is related to its being a young bird rather than
having mixed with the Ndutu birds at some time because…..

All three show the rich orange cheeks and sides of the face, with the
colours having a smooth transition into the brown at the back of the
head, and the deep yellow of the nape and between the orange of the
throat and the green breast.

I have returned your image with a group of Ndutus embedded for comparison.

Please note….

The difference in the red of the frons with the pucey-peachy cheeks on
Ndutu birds, as opposed to the flame orange frons and fairly
identically toned cheeks of your Moru birds.

The face of Ndutu birds is a dirty sooty colour, with an olive tinge,
this contrasts starkly with the peachy front to the face, your Moru
birds (apart from that top one) show no sooty darkening anywhere on
the face, from the front of the face the rich deep orange shows a
smooth transition into the orangey-brown of the rear part of the face
and equally smooth transition back to the orange of the nape and back
of the head, and into the brown of the crown.

The broad lemon hind collar, and very broad lemon yellow breast band
of Ndutu, with the hind collar having no trace of orange, and
restricted peachy throat, not reaching anywhere near the breast,
whilst the Moru birds have no lemon yellow anywhere in the plumage,
the collar and nape is orange, and the orange of the throat extends
all over the upper breast up to the green chest.

The back of the head of Ndutu birds varies between olive green
extending up to the crown, which is either also olive green or sooty
blackish, the Moru birds show rich orange on the nape, up the back of
the crown where it shades to brown, but no hint of green anywhere in
this area.

Like images from other parts of the Serengeti, it is very heartening
to see that the birds unlike the majority of those in Ndutu, Eyasi,
across to Kadatu still show such strong Fischer’s characteristics.

The birds from Maswa all look like hybrids, but the orange of the face
extends back a little more behind the eye, and the face is not as
heavily dusky as in Ndutu birds.

Thanks again for sending these images in,

Best for now
Brian