UK: My budgerigar (Pip) is in the Daily Mirror.

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I entered my budgie (I also entered Cocky, my cockatiel but she didn't get picked), into the Mirror's "Pet Idol" competition, and Pip is one of the finalists for best bird (He is number 17, if you have the paper).

You can also see him here:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objecti ... _page.html

Budgie!! ! I LOVE budgies (used to have 2, myself)! !!

*is reminded of Budgie the helicopter*

Oh good luck- I hope your bird wins!

Aw, Pip is cute. Finally realized the birds' names/numbers are BELOW the pics and not above. Thinking at first, "That doesn't look like a parakeet..."

I personally find budgies boring... mammals are much more versatile...

That's just me...

Birds just seem so frail... hollow bones, streamlined muscle...

Did you know that cat saliva is highly toxic to birds? Just shows how evil cats really are huh?

But birds make absolutely adorable, endearing noises all the time. And they do that "bird ballet" when they're stretching, which sends me into endless fits of giggles!

Pip is Cute

Pip is, indeed, very cute. I've also always preferred mammals as pets, but my brother's budgie "Fluffy" (named by a four-year-old me) was adorable, very smart, and full of personality. Plus, he outlived my ratties by about twelve years. (Lifespan is one of the main advantages of parrot-y birds as pets, IMO--unless, I suppose, you're a breeder developing particular traits in your lines.)

Birds are VERY cute...

But they're boring after the first five hours...

Primitive dinosaur brains and whatnot...

Makes me feel sad at seeing a bird in a cage. Or even in a house if allowed to roam. It just doesn't feel right. I know I could essentially say the same about my cats. They were once wild and had free roam. But it seems so sad when a bird can't take to the skies...

I saw him!! !!

My boyfriend called me to tell me to check out the Mirror because there were birds in it (he indulges my obsession magnificently), and I immediately spotted the budgie - he's absolutely gorgeous. I have 2 myself.

Budgies make excellent pets.

Why I love parrots (and yes budgies are parrots):
They're loud
They have no manners
They say inappropriate things
They're clumsy
They won't take any nonsense from you
They're overfriendly if they like you
They're obnoxious towards you if they don't like you
They can be moody but if they love you won't bear a grudge
They're extremely loyal
They're scatterbrained and messy
They're very intelligent.

Like me
I don't believe in reincarnation, but if I did I would say I'd been a parrot in a previous life

All those who say they are boring or stupid must not have spent much time with a parrot - they have the cognitive ability of a 2-3 year old human child (and the attention span!) and are ranked alongside the higher primates in terms of intelligence.

Ooh! I love parrots too! (which is why I have a budgie and a cockatiel).

I didn't even have to use zoom for that picture (although the original picture used Pip's whole body), he was just staring into the lense, hehe. My cockatiel hisses if you put the camera too close to her, so you have to use the zoom to get a good pictue of her.

I had two budgies many years ago. One was yellow and green and the other was blue, white, and black.

Pip, is grey-blue with a yellow head and tail, and whitish coloured wings with black markings on them. You can't see it very well on the picture, but Pip is a "spangle" budgerigar, which means the markings on his wings look almost like they've been reversed, normal budgies have dark (most commonly black) centers to the wing feathers with light coloured edges, Pip's wing feathers are white (with a hint of yellow) and grey/black markings round the edges (although if you look closely there is a pale border*). Strangely Pippy has one normally patterned feather.

*The reason for this pale border is because having one spangle gene stops the melanin, in the wing and throat feathers from forming in the center of the feather so it's almost as if the feather has been tye-dyed. Contsequently the pale border is there because normally patterned budgies don't have the melanin in that section of the feather, so removing colour from the centre of the feather doesn't add more colour round the edges, so it's not technically a reversed normal-pattern. (it doesnt look quite like that, but it's a similar principle, but with genetic instead of clips/string/rubber-bands)

yours shoulda won!