tags: budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, birds, parrots, Image of the Day
Third in a series of psittacine images by this photographer.
This parrot's scientific name means "song parrot with wavy lines" and its aboriginal name was close to "budgerigar" meaning "good eating" -- they consumed these small parrots as snacks!
The bird in the above picture is a blue morph of this species. The wild-type coloring for Budgerigars is green. A blue bird results in those individuals that cannot manufacture yellow pigment to add to their plumage, leaving it to reflect blue light only (read more about the physics of blue plumage coloring here).
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My dad used to breed budgies. The blue bit above the beak tells you that this one is male. Females have pink bits above their beaks. Talk about sexual stereotypes!
Swoon! I am in love! What a gorgeous budgie!
After listening to my budgie pair, I have decided that they sound like a video game. Maybe that's how they see the world. They sure bounce around a lot. Budgie Brownian Motion.
Nemo, Che, and I love this post!
Beautiful - that one looks like my girl budgie, except for the nose and the feet - both of my budgies have pink feet. I'm impressed with the picture, because mine rarely sit still long enough to get a picture in focus.
I have 2 Budgies Ping Pong and George. George looks exactly like the one in the photo while Ping Pong is all white. My mom also has a Budgie named Ms. Blue. She's also like the one in the photo except she's female with a pinkish nose.
Such sweet birdies! We had a succession of them when I was a kid, all of which managed to escape in one way or another. I've always thought the blue ones were the prettiest.