Birds · Psittaciformes · Psittacidae

Budgerigar

Melopsittacus undulatus

Least Concern

The species is abundant and widely distributed; it faces no significant short-term risk. See full glossary

The budgerigar is the smallest parrot in Australia and the most widely kept pet bird in the world after the chicken. In the wild it is green and yellow with finely barred upperparts, and it forms nomadic flocks of thousands of birds that range across the arid Australian interior following the rains. All the captive colour varieties, from blue to white, come from mutations selected since the nineteenth century.

Weight

30 g – 40 g

Size

18 cm – 20 cm

Lifespan

15 years

Diet

Herbivore

Feeds mainly on plants.

Activity

Diurnal

Active mainly during the day.

Social structure

Colony

Lives in large concentrations, often for breeding reasons.

Sighting difficulty

Easy

DesertGrasslandHerbivore Diurnal Colonial Bird Desert Grassland

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Fun facts

Its wild flocks can gather tens of thousands of birds and travel hundreds of kilometres following the rain: in the Australian interior they appear in and vanish from a region according to where it falls, with no fixed migration route.
It sees into the ultraviolet: the patches on its cheeks and forehead reflect UV light invisible to us, and females choose their mate by a glow no photograph can reproduce.
A budgerigar called Puck holds the Guinness World Record for a bird's vocabulary: 1,728 documented words.

Life cycle & biology

Skeleton type: Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)
Habitat & environment: Arid scrub, spinifex savanna and grassland of the Australian interior, always near water
Sexual maturity: 5.9 months
Gestation / incubation: 18 days
Litter / clutch size: 5

Sources consulted: https://www.iucnredlist.org/ | https://animaldiversity.org/ | https://es.wikipedia.org/