Where does Budgerigar (budgie) come from?
The budgerigar comes from inland Australia. Wild budgies roam the dry interior in nomadic flocks, and every wild one is green and yellow; the blue, white and yellow pets known around the world are colour forms bred in captivity since the 1850s.
Nomads of the dry interior
Budgerigars live wild across the drier parts of Australia, in scrubland, open woodland and grassland, though they are absent from Tasmania, the far south-west and most of the east coast. They eat mainly grass seeds and are seldom far from water, so their flocks keep moving as conditions change. They breed when rain brings a flush of seeds, and after a good season a flock can occasionally number tens of thousands of birds.
From Australia to the world
George Shaw first described the budgerigar in 1805, and John Gould gave it its scientific name, Melopsittacus undulatus, in 1840: roughly 'wave-patterned melodious parrot'. Budgies have been bred in captivity since the 1850s, and breeders have since fixed at least 32 primary colour mutations. Captive birds fall into two series: yellow-based (green, grey-green and yellow) and white-based (blue, grey and white). So-called English or show budgerigars are about twice the size of wild ones.
Why people guess South America
In American English the budgie is usually just called a parakeet, a name shared with many small, long-tailed parrots, and several popular ones, such as the conures, do come from South America. The budgerigar is not one of them. It is the only species in its genus, DNA studies place it closest to the lories and fig parrots, and its English name may come from gidjirrigaa in Gamilaraay, an Aboriginal Australian language.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Budgerigar ↗ · australian.museum ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Parakeet ↗
