Lovebird

Who a Lovebird suits

Right for one devoted person in a small home, and wrong for anybody hoping to be liked by an entire household. Kept singly it needs hours of your attention; kept in a pair it needs rather less of it and will still choose a favourite among you.

How to build the bond: Keep the daily one-on-one minutes sacred — devotion this fierce needs answering. That sits on top of how the species works generally: Bond through rhythm — morning greetings, call-and-response, meals in company. To a bird, being answered is being loved.

The Lovebird against the other nineteen

Lined up stillest to liveliest, the Lovebird is 12th of the twenty bird breeds here, one of 8 in the lively band — the energy arrives whether or not it was planned for, so the question is never whether it gets spent but on what.

Ordered by how near each one sits to the Lovebird on the energy axis, then by the notes they have in common. Every bird breed reads this table from its own position, so no two of the twenty are ordered alike.

The birth years a Lovebird sits easiest with

This half of the reading is the species rather than the breed — every bird meets a given birth year the same way. These are the communities that sit easiest with one:

• Whale Spirit Guardian—1948,1960,1972,1984and later
• Monkey Spirit Guardian—1956,1968,1980,1992and later
• Eagle Spirit Guardian—1957,1969,1981,1993and later
• Elephant Spirit Guardian—1959,1971,1983,1995and later

A birth year outside that list is not a warning — it is the half of the reading this page cannot settle on its own. Seat the pair on the board and it reads the rest. What the bird is like as a companion applies to the Lovebird as much as to the other nineteen.

A pairing that involves an animal returns a word rather than a percentage. The board's deepest layer reads two inner selves against each other and an animal cannot hold one, so the result is described rather than scored — what is read here is the keeper's birth year against the species, and the breed decides everything about living with it day to day. An animal does get a chart of its own once its birth hour is known, one rung further up.

Frequently asked

What is a Lovebird like to live with?

A small bird with opera-sized devotion — a Lovebird bonds intensely to its chosen one and defends that bond with comic ferocity. Expect pocket-riding and jealous chirps. On the energy axis this catalogue uses, the Lovebird reads as lively — 12th of the twenty bird breeds here when they are lined up stillest to liveliest.

Who is a Lovebird a good match for?

Right for one devoted person in a small home, and wrong for anybody hoping to be liked by an entire household. Kept singly it needs hours of your attention; kept in a pair it needs rather less of it and will still choose a favourite among you.

How do you bond with a Lovebird?

Keep the daily one-on-one minutes sacred — devotion this fierce needs answering. That sits on top of how the species works generally: Bond through rhythm — morning greetings, call-and-response, meals in company. To a bird, being answered is being loved. The thing that most reliably undoes it — Silence is the one cruelty — a bird left out of the conversation plucks the loneliness into its feathers.

Which bird breeds are most like a Lovebird?

Quaker Parrot, Budgerigar, Conure — nearest first, measured on energy band and shared traits. At the other end of the same twenty sits the Diamond Dove, two bands apart. Every one of the nineteen is ranked against the Lovebird further up this page.