23 September: Budgies

The Budgie Society AGM takes place on this date in 2023, so here are 10 things you might not know about budgies:

1. Budgies are one of the smallest members of the parakeet family. The scientific name for the Budgerigar is Melopsittacus undulatus. Melopsittacus is Greek for ‘melodious Parrot’ and undulatus is Latin for ‘undulated’, referring to their scalloped wing patterns.

2. The common name, Budgerigar, is derived from an Aboriginal word, ‘Betcherrygah‘, which is thought to mean ‘good food’. It’s unknown whether this meant that the bird itself made a nice meal, or if people followed the budgie migrations knowing that they’d be heading for places where there was lots of food and water.

3. They’ve been known by various other names including canary parrot, shell parrot, zebra parrot, warbling grass parakeet, and undulated parakeet.

4. They are native to Australia. They migrate north in the winter, covering huge distances and usually in flocks. Wild Budgies live in savannas, grasslands, open forests, grassy woodlands and farmland.

5. Budgies move and see out of each eye independently. This gives them an incredible quality of vision. A budgie can register over 150 images per second, compared with just 16 for humans. They also have a third eyelid.

6. Budgies have a very high resting respiration rate, ranging between 65-85 breaths per minute. Their Heart rate is also very high at over 300 beats a minute.

7. They are social birds and mate for life. Breeding occurs at any time of the year, but typically after Rain.

8. When a budgie is happy and relaxed, it will grind its beak, similar to a cat purring.

9. A Budgie’s scope of hearing ranges from 400-20,000 Hz. A Budgie can remember sequences of sounds, and sometimes mimic them, including human speech. They might not know the meaning of the sounds they copy but they can remember a lot. In 1995, The Guinness Book of World Records acknowledged a budgie named Puck as “the bird with the largest vocabulary in the world”. Puck knew 1,728 words.

10. One budgie owner, Ryan B. Reynolds of Canada, claimed that his budgie, Victor, could not only talk but could predict the future. Reynolds made recordings of his “conversations” with Victor in 2001, in which the bird allegedly predicted its own death. Needless to say, it hasn’t been possible to prove this budgie was a soothsayer.

Character Birthday

Speedy, aka Elizabeth “Lizzie” Hopkins. She is a genetic variant capable of running at incredible speeds. As a teenager, she competed in athletics contests, but was suspected of using performance enhancing drugs. One of the judges, Peter Mayfield (Ultra Grav) suspected Lizzie’s talent was down to a genetic variance rather than doping, and insisted on a drug test. The test was negative. Ultra Grav put it to Lizzie and her parents that she could be a variant and offered to train her. Lizzie was keen, but her parents were set against it. It would later be revealed that this was because Lizzie was adopted and they’d never told her, and were afraid the secret would come out. Lizzie gave up on athletics after that and took up dance, but vowed that when she reached 18 she would seek out Peter Mayfield and ask him to train her with a view to competing in the Olympics. She did find him, and joined his group of variants, the G Men. She would later discover that Ultra Grav was her biological father. She is in a relationship with her team mate, Aqua.

Running in the Family

An alien craft approaches Earth. The alien on board is a fugitive, fleeing from an arranged marriage to freedom on our world. She befriends James, a genetics student, and shares her knowledge about the future of the human race with him. 

A science experiment gone wrong gifts James with superhuman abilities; but they come at a price, leading him to mentor others like himself. He founds a group of amateur heroes called the Freedom League.

The Freedom League suffers a string of losses and tragedies; it seems doomed to failure; but one of its members, Peter Mayfield, has vowed to form a group of his own. He is determined to keep his vow, despite having lost Rosemary, the one person he wanted by his side to help him.

Lizzie Hopkins is a talented young athlete and dancer. Peter sees her in action and guesses her exceptional abilities are far more than they seem. He offers to train and mentor Lizzie - but her mother is violently opposed to his suggestion.

As soon as she is old enough, Lizzie takes matters into her own hands; she seeks out Peter and his group for herself. She soon makes a discovery which shakes her world at its very foundations. Her search for the truth will resolve many unanswered questions, but it will also stir up old heartbreaks dating back to the Freedom League's early days.

Available from:

Amazon Paperback;   Amazon Kindle