Senegal Eye Color

[Michael]

As I've been taking Kili outside a lot lately, I've been noticing her eyes looking more yellow. I'm not certain if it's just the different light or if it's because the greater exposure to sunlight is affecting the eye color transition.



Kili really had no major transition in eye color as I've heard is expected in Senegal Parrots. I never remember her having the nearly black baby eye color but she never got to yellow either. She was always a very pale silvery yellow/tan kind of color. However, now they look a bit more yellow. I might have to get a newer picture to compare.

Furthermore, I notice that in the Senegal Parrot Comparison, a lot of people's Senegals have similar dull yellow eye color unlike the piercing neon yellow eyes we often see in publications:



I heard a rumor and am beginning to suspect it may have to do with sun exposure (on top of age). It seems that our indoor Senegals don't get enough sun to change the eye color. However, people who got imported wild caughts didn't have this problem cause they were wild at the time of eye change. Is this valid? Does it come down to exposure to sunlight once the age is reached for the eyes to change to bright yellow? Does anyone have a strictly (all life) indoor Senegal Parrot that did get the bright yellow? Has anyone noticed their Senegal's eyes develop more yellow as result of getting more sun?

[Natacha]

It might be valid, however, I do have full spectrum lighting that should mimic the sunlight effects and I've met Senegals with the bright vivid yellow eyes who do not go outside nor do their owners use full spectrum lighting so I don't know...

[Michael]

I use full spectrum lights too. I don't know if I'm just imagining this or not, but going outside frequently with Kili seems to have much greater effect on this. If her eyes change by the end of the summer, I'm going to have to say it's because of exposure to sunlight rather than anything else cause they were due to change a year ago.

I just took some new pictures to compare before/after:




I understand that white balance/exposure, etc could affect the color in the photographs but I would say that the photos fairly accurately represent the color difference that I think I am observing. The first photo is somewhere between 1-1.5 yrs old and the second is just shy of 2 years.

[Ark]

I think that sun exposure can affect the darkness of the eye ring in Poicephalus Parrots, which may be part of what is giving such an intense appearance to the iris. I am curious to see if you will notice more of an iris color change as you take her out more, but she is still young and maybe it is just a coincidence and a change she may have started going through regardless.

Just out of curiosity, I did copy/paste both picture in paint and cut out half of Kili's eye and moved it over the other bird's eye. There is a difference in color, but not as big a difference as the picture makes it seem. I think, in this comparision, the darker eye ring makes the eye color pop more. So the darker iris plus the darker eye ring really bring out the effect in that bird, I find it gives a really piercing look to the eye. Most pictures of wild birds, depict Senegals with darker eye rings. I have not been around many mature Senegals, but I have seem some with very yellow eyes, but they were a breeding pair and I didn't ask their age so maybe age had something to do with it.

Just for the record, there is someone on another forum who has a Senegal that was around five years old and still had never gone past the light grey eye stage. I haven't been on that forum for awhile, so I don't remember how old the bird is now, nor if it's eyes ever changed. But just to say that it can sometimes happen that a Senegal does not get yellow eyes for a long while, if it all.

[pchela]

Yeah, I agree with Ark. My breeder told me that the sunlight affects the eye ring or mask. That would certainly make eye color stand out more.

[janetafloat]

I realise that this is an old thread but it came up because I was searching for information about what age Sennie's eyes change colour because my Sennie's eyes have gone from light silver to yellow in the past few weeks and he's only 8-9 months old. I thought that was too young but on another site it said they change between 6-12 months.But what I wanted to say was that we've been having a heat wave here in the UK and my Sennie got a new cage that's on castors so I've been wheeling him out onto my patio and he's been spending most of the day out there for the past 4 weeks. That's when his eyes started to change & the difference is already striking so, yes, I think natural light is a factor (he has an avian light too, which was on for 8-10 hours a day before he started going outside). Of course, it could be a coincidence but I don't think so - I started noticing his eyes changing really soon after he started going outside in the sun.

[GreenWing]

I wonder if it's also a gender difference? Tiki's eye color is still very light, a very subtle yellow, and I take her outside with me all the time. Her brother Jimmy, from her clutch and is the same age, had deep yellow eyes last February at 13 months of age and he was returned to the bird shop after his first family gave up on him at a young age. I could be wrong but I think male Sennies develop eye color much faster than females.

[janetafloat]

Hmmm, interesting, GreenWing! Alfie's eyes aren't super yellow as you can see, but it's quite a change from the silver grey they were a month ago. Presumably they'll keep changing for a while....we'll see how much more...


Pchela is right about the mask though, which has become much more pronounced - he looks like the Masked Bandit!

[GreenWing]

Hmmm, interesting, GreenWing! Alfie's eyes aren't super yellow as you can see, but it's quite a change from the silver grey they were a month ago. Presumably they'll keep changing for a while....we'll see how much more...


Pchela is right about the mask though, which has become much more pronounced - he looks like the Masked Bandit!

What a cutie! Alfie is just darling.

[janetafloat]

Thanks! He is!