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
ParrotsAustralian Ringnecks Bluebonnet Bourke’s Parrot Budgerigar Cockatiel Galah Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo Mallee Ringneck Mulga Parrot Port Lincoln Ringneck Purple-crowned Lorikeet Rainbow Lorikeet Red-collared Lorikeet Red-tailed Black Cockatoo Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo
BirdsApostlebird Australasian Darter Australasian Figbird Australasian Gannet Australasian Grebe Australasian Pipit Australasian Robins Australasian Shoveler (Spatula rhynchotis) Australasian Wrens Australian Babblers Australian Bustard Australian Chats Australian Magpie Australian Pelican Australian Pratincole (Stiltia isabella) Australian White Ibis Bassian Thrush Black-faced Cormorant Black-faced Woodswallow Black Swan Bowerbirds Brolga Brown Songlark Channel-billed Cuckoo Cinnamon Quail-thrush Cormorants Cuckooshrikes and Allies Dotterels Lapwings Plovers Doves & Pigeons Emu Fairy Martin Finches Grey Fantail Grey Teal Honeyeaters Kingfishers Little Friarbird Little Grassbird Magpie-lark Masked Woodswallow Noisy Pitta Olive Whistler Paradise Riflebird Pardalotes Parrots Pheasant Coucal Pied Butcherbird Rainbow Bee-eater Raptors Rufous Fantail Redthroat Rufous Bristlebird Silver-crowned Friarbird Torresian Crow Waders Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) Whiskered Tern (Chlidonias hybrida) White-browed Woodswallow White Capped Noddy White-faced Heron White-necked Heron Willie Wagtail Yellow-throated Scrubwren