A day in Budgie Kingdom

Thanks to chibudgielvr for uploading this video!

Budgies being budgies (video)

The title says it all... really sweet video, reminds you how special these little birds are :)

Fun with Budgies

Budgieman performing in London. Image (c) Maelle Morgan.

Remember Budgieman? If you like to watch a budgie circus (and if you can stand the sound of French), you can find some cool tricks in this video as well, like a budgie going down a slide and a budgie driving another budgie in a car.

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 (1)

Victor was, like many budgies, bought at a pet store, at the age of 8 weeks. He lived from 1997 until 2001, and in those years he did the most remarkable things. Things that might send chills down your spine.

Ryan Reynolds awoke one morning on a holiday and looked over at his budgie, Victor, who looked back at Ryan and said, "Pretty Ryan, where's Onie?". It was at this moment when Victor commented on the empty bed beside Ryan normally occupied by his wife, Apollonia, that Ryan began to wonder if Victor was no bird brain.

"A year ago, he started to say things I hadn't taught him, and he was describing things I was doing", Ryan says.

Ryan Reynolds is a Canadian psittalinguist: a person who interpreters the language of the parrot family. His budgie Victor had a vocabulary of over 1,000 words, which he used in context. Basically this means that Victor knew well what he was talking about and not just mimicing human speech or talking gibberish.

Reynolds, founder of the Budgie Research Group, worked long and hard on the deconstruction of Victor's recordings. He later reached out to others with talking budgies, coining his work in the term Psittalinguistics. "A sensitive ear is crucial because budgies talk at a rate of 150-200 words a minute", he says. "It takes a lot of skill and concentration. Budgies have a particular way of pronouncing words. It's like picking up accents."

From left to right: talking budgies Betty (mate to Victor), Toovic, Topper, Amber

"This is going to sound crazy, but they talk about spiritual things: God, the afterlife, a better world for them", Reynolds says. Could this reflect the thought of a thousand generations of budgerigars who had to survive the harsch inland conditions of Australia for millions of years? Or is it the thought of budgerigars who are locked up all their life for the entertainment of mankind?

Reynolds says that Victor predicted a "tsunami on the South Bank of Asia" and warned of an upcoming "super volcano". Only a few years later In the weeks before he died, Victor said that God was coming to take him away.

"One thing I have learned is a budgies thinking process is many times faster than ours. By the time we analyze and process one thought, they may have processed several of their own. This is mainly due to their anatomy being so much smaller than ours. Because of this, their brain waves do not have to travel as far, therefore allowing them to process thoughts more quickly. Additionally, because the average life span of a budgie is around ten years, one hour to us would be equal to several hours for them. This is evident in the way Victor talked. He had to make a conscious effort to slow down so he could communicate with people. This also enabled him to learn much faster than we do. Victor began talking at less than one year old and he was only a little more than three when he died. During that time his mind had rose to a level of an adult person. This may seem hard to believe but he proved this in many of his later conversations and recordings."

Victor died several years ago, which makes it impossible for anyone else to study him. This is one of the reasons why some people suspect that Victor's ability was just a hoax set up by Reynolds. Is he just saying all those words to make his owner happy? Or is Reynolds really right about Victor, and many other talking budgies? Do they understand us? Do they somehow have the ability to see into the future? Or do they just feel certain things that we can't feel - like birds that stop singing right before an earthquake is about to take place? What do you think?

Here is already one recording of Victor:



More about this remarkable budgie in the next post.

Budgie locks up Cat in his cage

It looks like a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, but this is reality: one day, a budgie decided to leave his cage to taunt his feline playfellow. He hopped on the sleeping cat, trying to get his attention, but the cat simply ignored him at first. After being repeatedly pecked on, the cat's hunting instinct started stirring and so he jumped to his feet.
This was just the moment the budgie had been waiting for: as the cat gave chase, the budgie led it straight into his cage. Just like in the cartoons, the bird wins from the cat. But this game may not last and will become dangerous once the cat grows up.

The game has only started: cheeky budgie pecks on the dozing kitten

This is where the kitten gets annoyed and loses his patience with the budgie

The budgie led the kitten straight into the cage, where he is now locked up. On top of the cage, a victorious budgie looking down on the kitten.

Information and pictures (c) dailymail.co.uk
Read the full story here!

Count to six

Scientists have tried to find out how smart budgies are. They carried out an experiment in which the birds had to count. The scientists took a few food bowls, filled them up with food and closed them with a lid. They had painted dots on the lids. After that, they showed the budgies little wooden signs, also with dots painted on it.

When they showed the budgies a sign with four dots, the budgies had to open a food bowl with the same number of dots painted on it. This way, budgies learned to count up to six! Not many animals can do this.

Photo from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo blog (http://cheyennemountainzooblog.blogspot.com)