crocnshas wrote:Well,hands up who thinks that's a pretty bird
I think it is a pretty bird. If I was out bushwalking and saw that bird, I think I would find it quite striking.
That doesn't mean it is prettier than nonhybrids, or that anyone should try to breed one, but it isn't ugly to me in and of itself.
matcho wrote:from what I am reading just about anything is possible
Possible, but unlikely if commonsense is applied. Think how often potential hybrid pairs are housed together for all the reasons mentioned above, yet hybrid offspring are really quite uncommon.
Don't mix similar, closely related birds, like OBs/strawbs, RCCB/BCCB, parsons/longtails, melbas/auroras, TCPF/BFPF, etc...
I think that when TCPFs were less common and more expensive, BFPF-TCPF hybrids were sold as TCPFs, and were of course infertile. This and similar stories go some way to explaining the antipathy towards hybrids that many forumites show.
The Gouldian-parrotie hybrids exist, but are not common despite those birds often appearing together in mixed collections in Australia. There is a theory that the Gouldian finch evolved from parrotfinches that were blown or flew across from Indonesia and hybridised here, and that the different head colours represent some residual genetic instability due to being recently evolved from hybrid stock. That is a whole 'nother story, though...
In Europe they fetch a hefty price, which suggests to me that they are not easy to breed.
IMHO, you are vanishingly unlikely to ever see an accidental hybrid of any combo of Goulds, stars and painteds.