A small Australian parrot. Wild birds have green bodies, yellow faces and dark markings on the head and wings.
The tail and wings taper to points. Captive birds have many colour forms that differ from wild plumage.
Budgerigar calls can become more alike among birds that live together. Researchers placed unfamiliar female budgerigars in groups of four and observed them for 19 weeks. Among the eight groups with enough regular calls for acoustic analysis, seven had a call type shared by three or four birds. Each group shared one to four call types rather than just one fixed call.
The recorded patterns differed by caller and, for the same caller, by recipient. Pairs that shared more call types also showed more behavior such as threats and pecks, but call sharing was not related to the measured stress-hormone levels. After one bird was moved to another group, its calls converged with residents’ calls in one cage. The results show how shared calls changed within these experimental social groups.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species · Least Concern (LC) · Global
The IUCN global assessment published in 2018 classified the budgerigar as Least Concern (LC) and recorded an increasing population trend. Its justification cites the species’ extremely large range and increasing trend. The number of mature individuals was not quantified.