"Out There" (budgies vs. parrots)

Budgies are in fact tiny parrots. Just like parrots, they have the gift of speech, and they have a lot of other, amazing things to offer you. Sadly, many people do not perceive budgies as "true parrots" due to their price and size. The budgies I bought in the store last week were only 12,5 EUR! To me, they're of course invaluable.

Image © George on Toonpool.com

Budgies are often underrated as pets. But they guarantee you some advantages:

• lower noise level
• less cleaning to do
• smaller beak (if a parrot bites you, it hurts, but budgies mostly just nibble on you)
• no damage to your household items

As mentioned above, budgies are extremely gifted in the talking department. They can easily pick up large vocabularies. One budgerigar named Puck mastered about 2,000 words! Budgies have a deep, whispering voice. They don't speak loudly, but you can understand them well. Budgies also come in an extremely wide variation of colors and mutations. The exact number of this is unknown, but it's estimated to be over a million.

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

The Bird with the Largest Vocabulary in the World

Puck, the champion of all talking birds (photo: eparrots.biz)

"Puck, a budgerigar, or budgie (popularly known as a parakeet in America), was accepted into the 1995 Guinness Book of World Records as "the bird with the largest vocabulary in the world." He was acknowledged as having 1,728 words when the Guinness Book went to press. The documentation for his feat took place over a six-month period when 21 volunteer observers in 21 separate sessions took notes on what they heard Puck say. Several observers were members of the Redwood Empire Cage Bird Club (Sonoma County, California), and most were familiar with various species of parrots. Two of the volunteers were avian veterinarians.

In addition to the volunteer observations, tape recordings and a video were provided as documentation for Guinness. Puck's owner/caregiver, Camille Jordan, of Petaluma, California has about 30 hours of Puck tape recordings, videos and detailed records of every word she heard spoken! Puck appeared on several Bay Area newscasts in December 1991 after an article was written about him in American Cage-Bird Magazine. Another article about Puck appeared in Bird World (Vol. 15, No. 6, 1994).

Rather than just mimicking, Puck created his own phrases and sentences. He often used the appropriate phrase in a situation, and sometimes displayed an uncanny understanding of his environment.

For example, on Christmas morning, 1993 Puck was entertaining himself on the coffee table in the living room when Camille and her husband heard him say: "It's Christmas. That's what's happening. That's what it's all about. I love Pucky. I love everyone."

Unfortunately, Puck's life was too brief. He was only five years old when he died of a gonadal tumor on August 25th, 1994(rip). He had been accepted into the Guinness Book only a few months earlier.

Puck appeared in the 1995 through 1998 Guinness Books, was omitted from the 1999 through 2002 editions and reappeared in the 2003 and 2004 editions. The 2005 paperback Guinness Book has not been released at the time of this writing. Readers should note that recordholders will not necessarily appear in every Guinness Book!"

(http://www.budgerigars.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?9433-puck&p=108781)