Budgerigar Parakeets

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Since childhood I have been a keen birdwatcher, and respectful of the freedom of birds. So the urge to keep budgies arising at the age of sixteen took me completely by surprise....I'd seen a pair of lutino budgies belonging to the brother of a friend, and felt sorry for them having to live in a cage. Some weeks later I noticed a poor little unwanted male budgie in a cage in a pet shop, all on it's own. Though on his own, he seemed quite content, happily chirping away to himself. I guessed that he hadn't attracted much interest previous to my visit, as his plumage seemed rather drab compared to the bright, almost iridiscent budgies in the other cage. In fact, he was a beautifully subtle olive green, with a dark navy-blue tail and many, many facial spots.

So I bought him, and brought him home to live in my bedroom. I soon discovered that he was a fan of the U2 album 'The Joshua Tree', as he would sing to it more loudly than he would to any other records of mine. Logically, I named the new budgie 'Josh'. He was extremely friendly, and within a few days he would perch on my finger.

Josh lived in my bedroom, safe from the house cat, as my door was always kept closed. Josh liked to fly around the room, and perch on the curtain rail and the tops of the posters on my wall. He used the posters to navigate around the room, and if I ever moved any, Josh would become disorientated; so whenever I did move things, I'd take little Josh for a walk around the room first, so that he could take in his new surroundings from the safe familiarity of his perch on my finger.

Josh was always a happy little bird, and though he never showed any signs of unhappiness, I was concerned that he might get lonely during the day when I couldn't be there with him; so I decided to get him a friend.

A very young-looking budgie caught my eye in the pet shop, with similar, but subtler and paler colouring to Josh. I named him Lemmy, and he and Josh took to one another immediately.

Above and below: Lemmy (left) Josh (right), being 'sat' for two weeks while I went on a horse-riding holiday in Northumbria.

Below: Josh (at the back, to the right of the green bird), and Lemmy (under the cage stand) with the sitter's own budgies.

As the months went by, poor little Lemmy unfortunately caught what seemed like a cold, and died suddenly.

Though Josh didn't seem affected by the loss of his friend, I thought that he would be better off with another of his own kind to talk to. Within a few days I came home with a beautiful little pale turquoise fellow with a lemon-yellow head and an electric blue tail. I named this pretty little thing Psychotic Homicidal Axe-Wielding Maniac, or 'Psycho' for short. Psycho and Josh got along just fine, and had great fun flying about the room together.

One weekend I held a 'Joss Stick Convention' at the house, which was a weekend gathering of friends. Unfortunately, during the night somebody did not close my bedroom door properly, and Carbonel the cat had pushed the door ajar and gained access. Tragically, little Psycho was killed, but luckily the wily Josh had sought refuge by hiding amongst the folds of material at the very top of the curtains.

Shortly after Psycho's tragic death, I left home to go to University. I took Josh with me, and another budgie which had been surplus to a breeder's requirement, who had been given to me. The new bird was grey (much like one of the birds in the picture above), and I called him Hendrix.

Hendrix and Josh enjoyed living in my room at Bexleyheath immensely. The Bexleyheath room was bigger than my bedroom at Epping, so the birds had more room to fly around in, and I was able to set up a 'perch tree' for them using branches from shrubs.

On one weekend I went away, leaving my housemates to look after Josh and Hendrix. Sadly, I returned to find that Hendrix had had an accident - he had got himself trapped head first between three bottles, and had died.

I didn't get another companion for Josh, as they had all met untimely ends. Josh stayed with me for another year, until I unfortunately had to move to accomodation which did not allow pets. Josh stayed with a friend, but unfortunately died shortly afterward.

I was upset by this, and although I missed Josh, I couldn't face getting another budgie to replace him.

Five years later, on 4th June 1996, I spotted a budgie in a pet shop who was the image of Psychotic Axe-Wielding Homicidal Maniac. I couldn't resist him, and brought him home. I named him 'Birdfriend'.

Birdfriend shared the room with two chipmunks, the white Star and the agouti Maxim. To my surprise, Star and Birdfriend discovered that they liked to sit together, within only two days of Birdfriend's arrival ! Maxim, however, was completely uninterested in the little turquoise budgerigar. At first, when Star approached Birdfriend, he would fly away, and the fast movement of Birdfriend would send Star scampering. But gradually, Star learnt that moving too quickly frightened Birdfriend, and very soon the two creatures would sit together on top of one of the cages in the room.

Below: Birdfriend and Star sitting together, 7th June 1996.

One day, when Birdfriend and Star were sitting together, the agouti chipmunk Maxim obviously saw them and wondered what on earth Star could be up to associating with a bird like that. So decided to come and investigate, but soon lost courage (as Star is the dominant chipmunk of the group) and scuttled away.

Below: Birdfriend, Star and Maxim (beating a hasty retreat down the front of the cage).

Read more about the Chipmunks on Ket's Chipmunk pages