Mutations in Budgerigars by Eric Peake

Since budgerigars became domesticated throughout the world their colours have become varied in many shades in varieties. The original wild budgerigar known as a light green later developed blues and varying shades of this colour. When they first became known as a popular pet during the early 1920s greens formed the majority of the colour group. During the 1930s when serious European fanciers develop the exhibition budgerigar many cross mutations were raised. Although we know the two main groups, greens and blues, other groups have been developed in various colours both in the green and the blue series.

Pieds 

There are two forms of pieds. The first being the Australian dominant pied. The pattern of this variety has two colours both in the body and the wing, each being equal in proportion to each other. The dominant Pied can only be bred by having one dominant pied in the mating. Babies produced from this variety can only be dominant Pied or a normal budgerigar. Statistics show that in some groups of babies pieds will form the majority, yet in other groups there will be no evidence of pieds whatsoever. Unfortunately, when breeding Australian dominant pieds 75% of the babies do not meet the standards required for this variety for exhibition. Their pattern of colour can be very striking especially in the dark factor group. Being dominant, this variety has enabled the fancier to progress in size with the exhibition birds. One of the problems of the modern Australian dominant pied is that the colour in the body has become very irregular. This will have to be very seriously dealt with in the near future to prevent the bird reverting back to a normal.

Composite Australian pieds, eg: yellow faced Opaline spangle, have presented a problem in the classification on the show bench secondary to more than one colour and variety in the bird.

The second pied in the variety is the Danish and Dutch recessive pied, once known as the Harlequin both in the U.S.A. and Europe. This variety has 75% of one colour, eg: yellow or white, throughout of the bird; 20% being green or blue with the remaining 5% black markings on the wing and head; hence the name Harlequin. This variety is recessive therefore birds bred can be split. Because this bird is recessive, it may appear as a normal. The distinguishing mark is a clear area at the back of the head usually 1/4 inch in radius. This bird being paired backed to a visual recessive pied will produce pieds in both male and female. The one advantage of this variety is that not much progress has been made in size and shape of the exhibition budgerigar. During the last 10 years birds have been introduced from Europe, which have been of a superior quality. Although birds of today show size and shape most of the original patterns have become distorted.

If we pair to recessive pieds together we will produce a dark eyed clear. This is a bird of one colour throughout with a black eye. The recessive Pied has no iris ring in the eye as does the Australian dominant pied. If a recessive pied is paired to a dominant pied then sometimes an odd eyed pied will be produced. This is a bird with one eye clear and a one eye with an iris ring.

Clearwings

This bird has been rated as one of the most beautiful of the budgerigars. Due to the light wings and dark colour of the body the contract is very striking when bred in the dark factor group. As Clearwings are recessive, most birds will produce either dark or light babies. One of the problems of this variety is that unless the fancier knows the background of his or her birds then it suffused or diluted babies will be produced. As in all forms of budgerigars there are light, medium and dark in all the colours. If two birds of the light group are paired together then very weak coloured birds will be produced. If two dark coloured birds are paired together the then the bird is known as a double factor a clearwing. The most significant problem of this dark group is in the wings, especially the flights, when they show the undesirable grey colour both in the greens and blues. It is easy to tell light, medium and dark by the cheek patch and the tail colour, which easily show the degree of density of colour....

The clearwing has become a very popular variety especially in the UK and now finding it place on the USA show bench. Most fanciers have introduced other mutations into the clearwing, eg: yellows, grey-white's. This unfortunately has been weakened the body colour but kept the wings light. Some fanciers have introduced normal budgerigars. This has had the opposite effect were the wings had become dark along with the body. The top clearwing breeders usually select the best of the variety with an emphasis on contrast still maintaining a good exhibition budgerigar.

The Australian clearwings have shown excellent clearwings has but their size has left a lot to be desired. In the most recent years good exhibition clearwings had been exported into Australia to rectify this problem.

Spangles

The original citing of this spectacular mutation appeared in New Zealand and then in Australia. Leading Australian expert, John Scoble has commented that this variety may be related to the recessive pied.

It is amazing that in the USA a variety known as the clear body show similar characteristics, especially when young, to the spangle. On close observation the flights and the tail show reversal of colour pattern, eg: white with black edging or yellow with black edging, depending on the green series or blue series. The area of the bird, which the spangle derived, its name from it is the shell feathered or semi circular feathers from the secondary area to the wing butt a. Close observation of these feathers show that they are not edged with a black as some people believe, but the black remains as per a normal bird. The absence of the grey area in this feather makes the spangle appear to have a black edge and each feather. Since the early 1970s, a when the spangle first came to the UK, from the six to eight specimens that arrived, there have been thousands of spangles bred and exhibited.

The amazing thing about this variety is that its fertility is exceptional in relation to all other varieties of budgerigars. The one significant point, that has been noted, is that along with exceptional facility the variety has also had the most success in progressing the exhibition quality in size and shape over all other varieties of the budgerigar.

As with the pieds fanciers have developed multi-variety birds, eg: yellow-faced spangle, dominant cinnamon pied. One of the most striking of all budgerigars is they yellow faced violet spangle. We don't know why the spangle has increased the depth of colour in the birds but it certainly has enhanced the group known as dark factor birds.

Other mutations

Briefly, in this group they are the lacewings, a one colour yellow or blue bird with edging of Cinnamon on the wings. The German fallow and the English fallow both have pink eyes with a normal wing pattern in cinnamon of a soft nature. Rainbows are, as the name implies, a multi-coloured bird. The definition being a yellow faced Opaline white wing blue. Albinos and Lutinos are also mutations. They are ino birds of one colour with pink eyes, devoid of any melanin in their make up. A Lutino or albino can be a pied, Opaline, normal or cinnamon. It is very important to know this when pairing the birds together. For example, if we pair two cinnamon albinos together there will be a significant area of brown appearing on the wings. To obtain the best depth of colour in Lutinos, we pair Opaline Lutino to Opaline Lutino, as the ground colour in Opalines is the same throughout. If we use green birds to breed split Lutinos then unfortunately a green sheen will appear on the body.

There are many specialists’ variety organisations covering all the mutations described. It is my advice to anyone contemplating breeding mutations to contact the Budgerigar Society in the UK and the USA for contact addresses and further information.