BudgerigarBudgerigar – flocks & flights Budgerigar – nesting Budgerigar – juvenile Budgerigar – resting & roosting Budgerigar – water Budgerigar – mixed company Budgerigar – morphs & disabilities
If you get the chance to see the native Budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus), perched and resting on trees and shrubs, you can see the beautiful patterning on their head, neck and wing feathers.
A small parrot, they are usually green and yellow (with the occasional morph variations), a beautiful scalloped pattern on the upperparts of their body and fine barring on the head. The fine barring is seen completely covering the head on juvenile and immature birds, with the adult being yellow from the front of the head to just over the top, then finely barred back and down the neck.
Their heads also have iridescent blue-violet cheek patches, with a series of three black spots on each side of the throat (called throat patches). Their tail is a beautiful dark cobalt blue, with outside tail feathers displaying central yellow flashes.
The adult male budgerigar cere (the area containing the nostrils) is royal blue. In the female bird it is brown to white, although it is pink in the immatures birds of both sexes.
The Budgerigars are highly social birds in the wild, with a lifespan of up to 15 years in the wild.
- Scientific classification
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Class: Aves
- Order: Psittaciformes
- Family: Psittaculidae
- Genus: Melopsittacus
- Species: M. undulatus
- Binomial name: Melopsittacus undulatus
BudgerigarBudgerigar – flocks & flights Budgerigar – nesting Budgerigar – juvenile Budgerigar – resting & roosting Budgerigar – water Budgerigar – mixed company Budgerigar – morphs & disabilities
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