Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts

Sunday, December 11, 2011

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