Educational Budgie Pix, Page Four

Ok, let's move on to other varieties of budgie markings. We have looked at the cinnamon variety; recall that cinnamon made the black markings look brown. A similar variety is the greywing. Greywings are birds whose black markings look grey instead of black.

This is a skyblue greywing. Notice that the markings are grey and the coloring of the bird is about 50% lighter than a regular skyblue bird.

There are two other varieties that are very similar to the greywing: the clearwing and the dilute. A clearwing (also sometimes called a whitewing)is like a greywing except the colors of the body are full-strength while the wing markings are light. This bird is a clearwing. (Remember we talked about a clearflight on page 1; don't confuse a clearflight with a clearwing.) A dilute is lighter still; colors and markings are very faint.

The symptoms on this budgie are the small pits in the beak, and the white cast to the feet (it almost looks as if the bird had smeared droppings on its feet). In addition, this bird acted as if it had something clinging to its feet (e.g., shaking the feet and chewing at them). Its mate spent much time trying to preen this bird's face.

Scaly face seems to affect budgies more than any other species. It is caused by tiny mites. Scaly face is treatable, so get your bird to the vet quickly if you see the symptoms. If your budgie has a beak that is pitted due to mites, the pits will have to grow out, over a period of time (like a mark on a fingernail).

It seems that some (or even most) budgies are able to fend off the mites. Some budgies either do not have this natural immunity or they are weakened for some reason. The budgie in the pictures had just finished breeding. Perhaps the strain of raising a family was enough to weaken him and allow the mites to take hold. All the other birds in the flight were fine.

Baby budgies smell good. If you ever have the opportunity to sniff one, do it! I describe the smell as that of celery, only sweeter.

This is true of baby budgies whether they are being hand-fed or parent-raised, so it is probably not due to what they eat. Perhaps it is a smell that makes them blend in with natural Austrailian vegetation, so that wild baby budgies would be harder for predators to find. That's just conjecture, though.