Budgie of the Month: Budgerigar the Yellow ("Budge")

Photo © The Northern Wildlings

Budge came to us when he was 3 months old. He was our first experience with keeping birds, and the reason we’ve both converted to bird-only people. For a little over a year he was our only budgie, and over a period of 6-8 months we hand tamed him and he tamed us, and we taught each other games and tricks. 

Photo © The Northern Wildlings

He loves to come into the shower with us, especially if Steve is there with his beard to nibble on. He’s afraid of nearly everything, unless his plastic traffic light toy is nearby. For some reason, that little $2 toy gives him all the courage you could ever hope to see in a bird.

Photo © The Northern Wildlings

He will sit and sing to himself for hours at a mirror, or to his reflection in a piece of chrome, or his shadow on the wall, or to the remote control… you get the idea. 

Photo © The Northern Wildlings

When he’s in the mood for scritches, he’ll let you ruffle all the feathers around his beak and give him a good head scritch. If you’re especially lucky, he’ll groom your ‘stache and eyebrows, and if you’re brave enough, he’ll groom your eyelashes (it tickles!)

Photo © The Northern Wildlings

If we’ve slept too long, he’ll do fly-bys over our heads, low enough to ruffle our hair across our faces. If that doesn’t work, he’ll keep at it, adding piercing screeches to the mix as he dive bombs. Once we get up, he usually goes back to sleep. He can be a bit of a dick like that.

Photo © The Northern Wildlings

His favourite foods are backyard grasses, kale and spinach, navel oranges, and celery leaves. He refuses to touch anything red or purple.

Photo © The Northern Wildlings

Story © The Northern Wildlings