Victor the Budgie (3)

Victor was a very remarkable budgie, who apparently not just mimiced the words he heard but also understood the meaning of them. He made jokes (mostly when picking fun on his mate Betty) and played with words. According to his owner Reynolds, he started almost every recording with little rhymes. One of his storytelling accomplishments was a twelve part series where he talks about passing from this world and what the afterlife would be like. You can hear this story in his series called "Heavens Gate." It is possibly the most inspiring story ever told by a nonhuman being.


This budgie also seemed to do more than just mere talking. In the next video, Victor predicted his own death. He has also a message for the PETA so they will not think that he was abused in his life.

(if you think you will be scared, don't look at this)



In "Heavens Gate", he also spoke of a volcano in Mt. St. Helens that would devastate the world in the near future, sending ash and causing millions to flee. After that, he says that earthquakes will begin. He says that in the future, budgies will learn to speak and help the world by warning of future disasters.

I am safe in here, uh, huh.
This part convince me God speak to budgie
But he spoke there, like he has known Victor, parts of life
Okay, now tell me what's above life!
You will teach them all for talking budgie contest!
They'll make this world for future, for people around.
Poor Victor doubt Ryan.
Ryan still hope in something but
the beautiful vast don't believe in bible. Yeah.
What's a blue budgie?
Don't we believe we good to help like that?
Ideally what's right? They're too often afraid to!
You all seem to act stupid!
Conduct your life! Work on stuff!
A purge help it. I can arrange it.
Don't put it off!
Be new year, big volcano, not nuts
Erupt ash on mill-ions!
The ash will happen some day
When it comes up you have right to know!
Okay, take a look at... earth
That produce death
Causes earthquakes

This could possibly refer to what happened in 2004. Could he have known this all along?

Many people wonder what is true about this and what is not. Personally, I think that Victor was a very intelligent and talented budgie. I don't know if budgerigars are able to see in the future, but then again, for all I know it could be true. There are many sceptics who think the whole story about Victor is a hoax.

The internet is full of information about this case study. Here are some interesting links:

The Phases of Research

Victor's Audio and Video Archive

The Victor Chronicles


Newspaper articles about Victor:

Talking budgie predicted his own death

Budgie gets religion on death bed

Victor the Budgie (2)

Many people believed Victor was the Einstein of parrots. Back then, the record holder of the "Most Proficient Talking Bird" was an African Grey parrot named Prudle. Victor mastered a vocabulary of at least 800 words, equal to the parrot's vocabulary, but he also seemed to know the meanings of the words.

Reynolds, owner of Victor: "Victor could speak and understand concepts the same as a human and it wasn't until several years after his death, that I began to really understand what he was saying. So you will often hear me asking Victor silly questions in the videos. I guess it was my way of couching him to talk, but little did I know what he was really saying. I would only catch about 5% of what he was saying in real time."

"I would often put myself in his place and ask how would I feel if I was in captivity and I had someone two hundred times bigger than me taking care of me? How would I feel about trusting someone, who was basically my captor. All budgies are born free by nature and part of their natural instinct is to do what they want to do. They do not like to be told what to do. They can become very close to humans, but they have to be treated fairly and with respect. Most importantly when it comes to talking and bonding with people, they can get discouraged very easily. Once they are discouraged you may never have a bonding type relationship that will facilitate them wanting to communicate with you."

Victor had only seen other budgies when he was still a baby. After 3 years, Reynolds got him a mate, Betty (she looks like a clearflight pied type, but I'm not sure). She was his mate for approximately 3 months before he died. During that time, she picked up much of his vocabulary. Her pronounciation is less good because she had a lot of contact with other budgies and spoke their language with them.

In this audio, Victor seems to be aware of the fact that Betty came from a pet store and wanted Reynolds to thank the pet store for her.



"Betty was even progressing faster than Victor, due to the training he gave her. Once he knew that Betty was learning from him, he said he wanted to start a budgie school. He was also proud and called himself her teacher. Victor believed that he had important things to teach people about budgies as well. That is one of the reasons he liked to be recorded. He wanted everyone to hear what he had to say. I believe one of his goals in life was to teach people how special budgies can be."

Victor is giving Betty his school lessons under the kitchen table.



In this audio, Victor is happy because Betty starts talking, which makes him a good teacher.

Information, images and audio (c) Ryan Reynolds

Australia's Oldest Budgie

This budgie looks very similar to Australia's Pretty Boy

According to the Guinness World Book of Records, the oldest budgie ever lived in England. His name was Charlie, and he reached the age of 29 years!

Now people tried to find out if there's any pet budgie in Australia that is approaching Charlie's age. They received a letter from Betty Cummings, who lives in New South Wales. Betty has a male blue budgie called "Pretty Boy", who is 26 years old. Pretty Boy's breeder confirmed the age. Betty, age 78, lost her husband two years earlier, and now the budgie keeps her company.

It is possible that Pretty Boy is the oldest budgie in Australia at the moment - he may even break Charlie's record as the oldest budgie in recorded history. This could be a nice coincidence, given that budgies are originally Australian birds :)

English Budgies

Domesticated budgies are bigger than their wild ancestors from Australia... and English budgies are even bigger! Some people think they're not a pretty sight, but they used to be very famous once - and I think they deserve just us much love and care as other birds.


English budgies are mostly bred for shows or exhibitions. During the years, some body proportions gained importance among breeders. The shape of the English budgie is what became the ideal in the UK, hence the name. They are about one budgie-head taller than wild budgerigars, and they look more stout because they weigh 50g (other budgies weigh 30-40 g). They have a huge head and lots of throat spots. Nevertheless, they still belong to the same species all budgies belong to: Melopsitaccus undulatus.

And after they eat...

photo: nyscience.org

You would think that some other animals go to the bathroom a lot, but budgies will beat that easily.
They poop every 12 to 15 minutes. Impressive! It's a good thing your little feathered friends prefer to do it within the bird cage, which makes it easy to clean!

Introduction

A budgie (short for budgerigar) is a small parrot, originally with green and yellow colours. After the 1850s, people started breeding budgies to obtain different colours. As a result, some of the budgies you see today are different kinds of blue or violet or greywinged. A budgie can even be entirely white - there are countless combinations. The most common is still green and yellow.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

As some of you may know, budgies are native to Australia, where they have survived for the last five million years in harsch conditions.

Many people like to keep a dog or a cat, but nothing beats the company of these sweet little feathered friends for me!

This is how my blog is going to work: every day (or two days, if I'm busy) I'll tell you something you might want to know about budgies, to convince you that they are awesome.