Budgies talk back

Photo © snollygosters

One of the reasons why budgies make great pets, is because they talk back to you. If you take the time to talk and communicate with your budgerigar, you will soon find your feathered friend chatting back to you. If you have a good bond with your budgies, you will notice that they can be really attentive, because they're so eager to learn your language!

Do female budgies sing?

Just like male budgies, female budgies do dance, sing and bond with their mate. My Isla sometimes sings in the evening, when she's relaxed. Female budgies sing less than males, but their songs are no less important. In fact, songs mean a lot to budgies. It's part of how they communicate, part of their history and part of who they are.

Photo © sakurabana

A little love lesson for all male budgies: a female budgerigar is likely to choose a mate that sounds a little bit like herself. Go on and impress them! :)

Opposites do not attract

Photo © www.welli.net

I found an interesting article online about mate choice among budgerigars. After reading this, it became clear that budgies often choose a mate that they can relate to. Just think of when you fall in love with someone, and suddenly he or she tells you about the great concert of last week. It happens to be your favourite band too! You admire the person even more. Having something in common like this, creates a bond. This is exactly the way it goes with budgies - although it's just one factor in the mate choice - they want a mate to share their song with - the song of their life.

Opposites do not attract

"Research conducted recently at University of California has revealed that female budgerigars choose a mate whose contact calls closely resemble their own. Males, in turn, also pay more attention to similarly-sounding mates than to females whose calls differ from theirs, grooming them often and defending them vigorously. When paired with such females, male budgerigars also devote substantially more time to the care of their young. This extra care translates into an increased rate of growth and survival for the nestlings."

 We sing the same song
 
"It has long been known that male budgerigars imitate the calls of their mates, and that doing so seems to strengthen the bond between the pair. Budgerigars have highly variable contact calls, more so than many other parrots. This may help the pair to maintain contact and to thwart competition within the huge flocks that parakeets typically form. The current research is the first to show that female mate choice is influenced by the initial sound of the male’s contact call, before he has begun to imitate her sounds.
Although budgerigars breed readily for pet keepers, this information may have important implications for hobbyists and zoos working with rare parrots that do not reproduce reliably in captivity."

Article information © thatbirdblog/thatpetplace.com