Budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus): Wild Budgie Facts

What does a wild budgerigar look like?

Wild budgerigars are slim, streamlined parrots with pointed wings and a long, tapering tail. The body is bright grass green, the face and forehead are yellow, and the back of the head, neck and wings are crossed by fine black wavy bars edged with yellow. The species name undulatus means “wavy” and refers to this pattern.

On each cheek there is a small violet-blue patch, and a row of three small black spots runs across each side of the throat. The tail is dark blue with yellow bands on the outer feathers, and a yellow wing bar shows clearly in flight. The bill is olive gray and the legs bluish gray.

The sexes look alike except for the cere, the patch of bare skin above the bill. Adult males usually have a blue cere, while females have a pale brown or whitish one that turns crusty brown when they are breeding. Young birds have dark bars running down to the cere, dark eyes without a pale ring, and pinkish ceres. Why the wild color is always green is explained in Why are wild budgies green?

How big are wild budgies?

Wild budgies are small and light, about the size of a sparrow with a long tail. Birds kept as pets are often larger, and show or “English” budgerigars bred for exhibitions can be about twice the weight of wild birds.

Their small size and long, pointed wings make them fast, agile flyers. Flocks twist and turn together in tight formation, which helps them avoid falcons and other birds of prey.

Habitat and range

Budgerigars live across most of mainland Australia, but they are birds of the dry interior. They are found in open grassland, mulga and mallee scrub, saltbush plains and lightly wooded country, usually within flying distance of water. They avoid the wetter coastal regions of the far east, southeast and southwest, and they are absent from Tasmania.

Wild budgies are nomads rather than true migrants. Flocks move across the outback in response to rainfall, following the grasses that spring up and set seed after rain. In many years there is a general movement toward the north in winter and back south in spring, but routes and numbers vary a great deal from year to year. Where and how they live is covered in more detail in Where do budgies live in the wild?

A feral population established in Florida in the 1950s and 1960s, but it declined from the 1980s and has since died out. Today wild budgerigars live naturally only in Australia.

What do wild budgies eat?

Wild budgerigars are seed-eaters. They feed mostly on the ground, picking up the small seeds of grasses such as spinifex, Mitchell grass and other native grasses, as well as seeds of saltbush and other low plants. They also visit ripening crops and will eat seed from roadside grasses.

A budgie removes the husk with its bill and swallows the kernel. Because dry seeds contain very little water, wild budgies need to drink regularly, and flocks gather at waterholes, creeks, dams and stock tanks, especially in the early morning and late afternoon. Farm dams and bores built for cattle and sheep have helped them in some areas.

Behavior

Budgerigars are highly social and almost always live in flocks. Usually these are small groups of a few dozen birds, but after good rains they can form flocks of thousands, sweeping over the plains in waves of green and yellow. Flock members preen each other and feed each other by bringing up seeds, which strengthens bonds between partners.

Their day follows a regular pattern. They become active around sunrise, preen and chatter, then fly off to feed. During the heat of the day they rest quietly in the shade of trees and shrubs, and in the late afternoon they feed and drink again before gathering noisily at roosting trees at dusk.

Budgies are chatty birds with a warbling song and contact calls that help flock members keep together. Their ability to learn new sounds, which makes pet males such good mimics of human speech, probably evolved to help them share flock calls.

Reproduction and life cycle

Wild budgerigars are opportunistic breeders. Instead of nesting in a fixed season, they breed when rain has produced plenty of seeding grass, often in winter in the north and in spring and summer in the south. Pairs are generally monogamous and nest in loose colonies, sometimes with several nests in the same tree.

They nest in hollows in eucalyptus trees, stumps, fence posts or fallen logs, laying the eggs on the bare wood or wood dust with no added nest material. The female lays usually four to six white eggs, one every other day, and incubates them for about 18–21 days while the male brings her food.

The chicks hatch blind and naked. Both parents feed them, and they leave the nest at about 30–35 days old. In good conditions young budgies can breed when only a few months old, and pairs may raise several broods in a row while food lasts, which allows populations to grow very quickly after rain.

How long do budgies live?

There is little reliable data on the lifespan of wild budgerigars. Heat, drought, predators and the need to find water make life risky, and most wild birds probably live only a few years. In captivity, budgies commonly live 5–10 years, and some have lived 15 years or more. The average lifespan of different parrots is compared in How long do parrots live?

How wild budgies differ from pet budgies

All pet budgerigars belong to the same species as wild birds, but more than 150 years of breeding in captivity have changed them in visible ways.

Wild birds also behave differently. They spend their lives moving with a flock, flying long distances between food and water, and they are wary of people and predators. Captive budgies are kept in a stable environment with regular food and water, so many of the pressures that shaped the wild bird no longer apply.

Myths and facts

Myth: budgies are found wild in many countries. Escaped pet budgies are seen in towns around the world, but they rarely survive for long. The only long-lasting feral population outside Australia, in Florida, has died out.

Myth: blue budgies are a natural wild form. Wild budgerigars are green. Blue birds arose from a mutation that was picked out and bred in captivity, and a blue budgie in the outback would be a rare oddity, probably an escaped or released pet.

Fact: budgies can see ultraviolet light. Like many birds, budgerigars have four types of color receptors in their eyes, including one sensitive to ultraviolet. Some of their yellow head feathers glow under ultraviolet light, and this seems to play a part in choosing a mate.

Predators, threats and conservation

Birds of prey are the main predators of adult budgerigars, especially fast falcons such as the Australian hobby, brown falcon and grey falcon. Goannas, snakes and other climbing animals raid nests for eggs and chicks.

Weather is an even bigger danger. During droughts, flocks must travel long distances to find seed and water, and during extreme heatwaves large numbers of budgerigars and other small desert birds have died from heat stress and lack of water.

The budgerigar is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It has an enormous range and a large population that rises and falls with rainfall, and it is not considered threatened. Australia does not allow the export of its native wildlife for the pet trade, so pet budgies around the world come from captive-bred stock that has been kept outside Australia since the nineteenth century.

Wild budgies and people

The name budgerigar is thought to come from an Aboriginal language of New South Wales, though its exact origin and meaning are uncertain. The English naturalist John Gould brought live budgerigars to England in 1840, and within a few decades they were being bred in large numbers in Europe.

Over time, breeders produced many color varieties, as well as larger show birds with fluffy head feathers. Wild budgies remain smaller, slimmer and always green. They are a highlight for birdwatchers in central Australia, alongside other animals described in our list of Australian animals.