BUDGIES

The first Budgerigars were brought to England from Australia by a naturalist named John Gould in about 1840. They were given the scientific name of Melopsittacus undulatus (song parrot wave-lined).

These birds were light green in colour (colours such as yellow, blue and white did not exist at this time) although there were reports that occasionally yellows were seen flying in wild flocks. As with most animals the wild colour is ‘dominant’ to any colour that is produced in captivity. The green colour of budgerigars is no exception to the rules except for one colour which I will write about later. The markings of wild birds which are known as ‘normals’ and are also ‘dominant’ to most of the captive varieties that are bred today.

The name Budgerigar comes from the Aboriginal word meaning ‘good food’ and they are Australia’s smallest parrot.

It is unclear of the first recorded breeding in England but it was reported to be by John Gould’s brother-in-law Charles Coxon around about the same time that they arrived in England.

The first imported birds for the pet trade were only cock birds as the traders/importers thought that if the birds were to be bred in captivity then the price would drop. Budgerigars were being exported from Australia to the continent in their thousands particularly to France and Belgium.

As budgerigars became popular some keepers obtained imported hen birds and started to breed from them.

In the early days of budgerigar keeping only one colour existed – these were the same as the wild light green. Yellow budgerigars were the first colour mutation to appear in captivity around 1871 these birds had pale green on their body and became known as ‘Suffused Yellows’. At the same time it was reported that another yellow had appeared only these birds were of pure yellow and had red eyes, these were called Lutino they were the green equivalent of Albino (which most of us know as pure white with red eyes).

Although lutino budgerigars were being bred as far back as 1879 they were never really established as a breeding strain I assume that they ‘just appeared’.

The next colour to appear were skyblues (all the books which I have read refer to these as ‘powder blues’) this was around 1882 in Belgium but was not available to breeders until about 1911 when birds were sent to France. These blues were quickly followed by dark greens (called laurel greens) a few years later in 1915 which are of the ‘medium’ shade.

Pairing a skyblue to a dark green eventually produced the cobalt in 1920 these were first called Royal Blue in England (during further reading I found a reference to a variety called greywing cobalts also being called Royal Blues in Australia there is no date but I am assuming it is between the mid 1920’s and early 1930’s).

We now have two shades in both the green and blue series:- light (light green, light yellow and skyblue) and medium (dark green, dark yellow and cobalt).

The next colour to appear was the olive green in 1916 in France from two dark greens.

In 1924 mauves were bred from two cobalts.

We now have three shades to all the colours, light green, light yellow and skyblue (light) dark green, dark yellow and cobalt (medium) and olive green, olive yellow and mauve (dark).

1931 albino budgerigars were reported (pure white with red eyes of the blue series).

1933 saw the first grey colour budgerigar in England this was what is known as the ‘English recessive grey’ but was not fully established. However, in 1935 there was another variety of grey budgerigar reported in Australia, this grey was a ‘dominant’ variety and this time this colour was established.

As with the green and blue series I believe that the grey also has the light, medium and dark shades as I have seen some very light greys and also some very dark greys.

I think that greys are really a factor rather than a colour as they tend to change the shade of colours that they are paired to particularly in the greens, these are known as grey-greens (as both grey and green are ‘dominant’ both colours appear on the same bird) but in the meantime I will try to find out more about this.

I also believe that the lutino has all three shades as I once bred a very pale lutino, it was almost a pale lemon colour very similar to what I can only describe as a yellow-faced albino that I also bred some years ago, I had never heard of or bred these birds before so, maybe they were just badly coloured birds but whatever they were they were very nice looking birds!

In my next section I will write about ‘varieties’ these are birds that have either a different pattern marking or colour of markings and even no markings at all!

Please feel free to post any comments that you may have for this article or any corrections.