Blue budgies and Japanese cars

First recorded appearance of the blue budgerigar mutation

Photo © spookybear

The blue budgerigar made its first recorded appearance in 1878. The budgerigars are said to be owned by a certain M. Limbosch in a suburb of Brussels, Belgium. Barely 3 years later, this strain died out and blue budgies seemed to have disappeared from our world. A few years later, some blue budgies occasionally occurred in Dutch aviaries. This was still a very rare thing to happen.

The first blue budgies to be seen in England were a couple exhibited by Messrs Millsum and Pauwels at the Horticultural Hall in 1910 and the Crystal Palace in 1911.

Expensive rarity

Blue budgies remained a rarity until the 1930s. People in Japan were prepared to pay £100 for blue budgies, which is about the cost of a car at that time!

Photo © theresanupsideofdown