"Who is a clever boy? " News article on the Melopsittacus

[Cardinal]

Churchill was greatly upset and Onassis gave him a replacement budgie named Byron that proved somewhat irascible and was sent to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, also a well-known budgie breeder, in the hope he could curb its biting. Whether it was this bird rehabilitated or another altogether is unclear, but there was a budgerigar beside Churchill right up until the final months of his life.

The budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, a *colourful little Aussie bird, has been painted by masters, coveted by royals, rendered in the *finest porcelain, modelled in plastic, dipped in *batter, baked in pies, bred artificially in test tubes and depicted on the postage stamps of more than 30 nations from Antigua to Zambia. And it’s a bird with an astonishing capacity to bring out *tenderness in great and powerful men.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/we...d/news-story/a48838c643e1fb4e253aec57d5d09ee7

 

[Betrisher]

Great story, Cardinal, and *so* true! The smartest parrot I've met was a budgie and I've seen so many of them doing incredibly clever and unusual things. I don't know why people think of them as 'starter' birds. My son adores them and would happily have an aviary full of them if we had the space. I reckon budgerigars are the smallest members of the cockatoo family, only scientists haven't quite figured it out yet.

 

[Cardinal]

Betrisher! are you joking on Budgies being Cockatoos?? I am guessing so!

 

[Betrisher]

Well, if you look in a scientific taxonomy book, it'll say they're not cockatoos. But if you look in their determined little faces, you really do wonder. So I was only half joking, y'know?

 

[Cardinal]

Well, if you look in a scientific taxonomy book, it'll say they're not cockatoos. But if you look in their determined little faces, you really do wonder. So I was only half joking, y'know?

Yes when you look at their face, they can belong the cockatoo family,
if you look at the plumage , the Rosellas and also the Ground and Night parrot look like relatives.
They can also qualify as a pygmy parrot
their brain is like that of a Grey Parrot but apparently the DNA says they are close to lorikeets.

And some say they may not be a Parrot or a bird after all but a chameleon wearing disguises

 

[bug_n_flock]

The article won't load for me. D: