Colours & Mutations
Budgerigar Colours and Mutations
The Budgerigar once called the undulated parakeet was only available in the one colour combination of green, yellow and black.
Now we have vibrant colours, pattern combinations and varieties that have transformed the wild budgerigar into budgerigars of outstanding beauty, they are easy to manage, will breed in most conditions and make wonderful pets.
The Budgerigar has been known by several names which include the Undulated Parakeet, Grass Parakeet and Zebra Parrot. The name Budgerigar means “good food”, the Australian aboriginal translation for good was “boodgeree” and the end part “gai”meant food or to eat.
These birds were introduced to
Budgerigar Colours/Mutations
Dark green hen courtesy of Daniel Lutolf
Sky blue Cobalt Mauve
MAUVE- Body colour deep mauve - cheek patches violet - eyes black/white iris ring - tail dark blue - legs/feet blue/grey mottled - spots black.
Albino Hen courtesy of Lee Marshall Dark eyed clear white
Albino -Body colour white-cheek patch silvery white -eyes plumb red /with white iris-feet/legs fleshy pink-cocks cere fleshy pink
Double factor white spangle -body colour white-eyes black/white iris-cheek patch violet/silvery white-feet / legs blue/grey or fleshy pink
Da rk eyed clears - body colour clear yellow or white-cheek patches silvery white-eyes black no iris-tail and wing clear yellow or white-cocks cere fleshy pink
Creamino is not a recognised name on the show bench.
This is a combination of Albino and Yellowface or Goldenface.
They will maintain the red eyes and lack of all pigmentation except for the yellowface or Goldenface.
S3872 Rung greygreen @ 30 days old
Violet Spangle - -Violet Greywing -- Violet Clearwing
The dark-eyed clear is actually a combination of recessive pied and clearflight pied.
When these two mutations are both present, the budgerigar has no markings or colour.
It is either pure yellow (if it is a yellow-based budgie) or pure white (if it is a white-based budgie).
Pairing two spangle green series birds together will breed double factor yellow spangles.
Lutinos
S3872 Rung
Lutinos courtesy of Daniel Lutolf
S3872 Rung
DOUBLE FACTOR SPANGLE YELLOW - body colour yellow and free from green suffusion - cheek patches silvery white -
eyes black with white iris - tail and wing feathers yellow- feet and legs blue/grey or fleshy pink - spots none.
Dark Eyed Yellow Courtesy Mick Freakley
Dark Eyed Clear Yellow
body colour clear yellow - cheek patch silvery white- eyes black no iris ring
tail & wing clear - feet & legs - fleshy pink- spots none - cocks cere fleshy pink
Yellow Face Grey Texas Clearbody Courtesy of Mark Gulley
Golden Face Sky Blue & Golden Face Dominant Pied Sky Blue Courtesy of Ray Fern
Clearwings fall into two main groups ,whitewings are the blue series birds and yellowwings are the green series birds.
The Whitewing which is the name for blue series clearwings.
Young Violet Cobalt Whitewings Courtesy of John W Evans
Dilutes.
The whites come in two different types only,the suffused and the grey white.
Both descriptions above can be applied to the white. The body colour of the suffused white may be masking
skyblue,cobalt,mauve or violet in its make up.
Suffussed Yellows courtesy of Daniel Lutolf
The Greywings.
The greywing can be found in all the green and all the blue series colours,as the name suggests all the markings should be
grey instead of the normal black,the body colour will be diluted to 50% of the normal colour.
A problem occurs where two wing densities exist the light one grey and the dark one has black colouration.
greywing grey courtesy of Mark Gulley
GREYWINGS - body colour 50% off normal - cheek patch light violet ( in the grey series it would be light grey) - eyes
black with white iris - tail tinged blue/grey - wings light grey suffused - feet and legs blue grey mottled - spots grey.
Greywing Grey
Greywing Light Green courtesy of Lee Marshall
Opalines
Now i have introduced the normal variety perhaps i should point out the difference between a normal marked budgerigar
and the opaline markings.
Opaline light green hen Normal light green hen --- both these birds are Cinnamons.
The opaline should have the edges of all wing feathers well defined and show the same colour as the body colour on the
wings,a smudging on the wings is a fault on the show bench.The body colour runs through the stripes on the back of the
neck and down through the wing feathers replacing the yellow or white of a normal.The tail feathers also have areas of the
body colour running through.
The V area down the back called the saddle should be the same colour as the body without any dark markings.
See how clean the saddle is on the opaline on the left compared with the normal on the right,and the beautiful clear
saddle on the opaline spangle grey.
Two super examples of the saddle of the opaline - courtesy of Mark Gulley.
Now we have mentioned cinnamons we will look at the difference between cinnamon and normal markings.
CINNAMONS.
The affect of the cinnamon factor is to change all the black feathers into cinnamon brown and to soften the main body
colour by 50% of the normal colour.Eyes are black with a white iris
Eyes are black with a white iris ring but on hatching the eyes of chicks are pink.
Cinnamons - body colour 50% of normal body colour - cheek patches violet -
eyes black with white iris - tail dark blue with a brown quill - wings
cinnamon - feet and legs greyish pink or pinkish - spots cinnamon brown.
Cinnamon clearflight grey Cinnamon cobalt cock @ 6 weeks old.
FALLOWS.
The Fallow is a recessive variety and appears in blue, grey and green forms, the colour being pale at the top and
progressively becoming darker,the true colour being found on the rump,all markings being a chocolate brown.
Today there are two main mutations of Fallow, the German Fallow and the English Fallow.
These two varieties are quite similar, the difference being found in the eye,where the German Fallow has an iris ring
around the red eye the English Fallow has not.
German Fallows Courtesy of Joseph from India
German fallow with iris ring English fallow without iris 
Spangles come in single and double factor. Double factor spangled birds are either all yellow or all white with dark
eyes and an iris ring.
Single factor spangles only have their wing pattern changed by this mutation, and instead of the feather being black and
edged with the ground colour( white or yellow),the feathers becomes of the ground colour and edged with black.
Spangle sky blue Double factor white spangle spangle cinnamon sky blue
Spangle cobalt opaline spangle dominant pied grey.
See how the wing feathers are edged with black,spangled.
Opaline spangle sky blue Opaline spangle grey Opaline spangle sky blue
A spangle that is opaline will have smudged wing markings with the body colour showing.
Normal Spangle wing markings Opaline Spangle wing markings
SPANGLE - body colour as normal - cheek patches violet/silvery white - eyes black with white iris - tail and wings yellow
edged with black ( green series) white edged with black( blue series) - feet and legs blue/grey or fleshy pink - spots
black edged with a white or yellow centre.
Spangle Greygreen Courtesy of Daniel Lutolf
This dominant mutation comes in both single and double factor forms.When a chick melanistic spangle feathers up it looks
like a normally marked bird
with the exception of both tail feathers being white.With each moult the wing markings progressively change from normal
to spangle markings.A double factor melanistic spangle prosuces a full body colour but the wings are pure white without
markings.
Melanistic Spangles Courtesy of Tom Salam
PIEDS.-problems,clearflights,recessive,dark eyed clears,dominant,dutch,danish,continental,australian,banded,harlequin
and then double factor,that takes a little sorting out but we can do it.
We will start with the danish,harlequin and the recessive which are three names for the same variety of pied.
Pieds - The recessive pied budgie's eyes are dark plum colored with no iris ring ,this is how you can be sure a pied is
recessive pied.
The cere of the male recessive pied also does not change normally.Adult male recessive pieds have purple/fleshy pink
ceres.
Adult female recessive pieds have the normal brown ceres.
Blue recessive pieds courtesy of the marshall and shotton stud.
The Recessive Pied has mostly clear body feathers with irregular patches of body colour,though most have green/blue near the belly
area.The wings can have random
markings,from clear to heavy marked wings,although where marked they are usually in a half shell pattern with the top portion of the
marked feathers clear.
Cinnamon Dark Green Recessive pied-Cinnamon Greygreen Recessive Pied
Coutesy of C& D .Jones
RECESSIVE PIEDS - also known as the danish recessive or harlequin pied - body colour as normal with clear patches
mainly on the lower area-
cheek patches violet or silvery white - eyes dark/no iris - tail clear/dark blue - wings irregular clear patches -feet and
legs fleshy pink - spots
black and may be present - head black metanistic around the eyes and neck - cere male is fleshy pink.
The australian dominant pieds are divided into dominant pieds and banded pieds the difference is the chest markings,the
dominant having
irregular and broken patches and the banded having a clear band right round the chest.The australian breeders tried to
improve the banded pied
by crossing them with the dominant pied and bred out the clear bands,we do hope they will return in numbers.
DOMINANT PIED.
displays the banding of a banded pied. -
One of my baby dominant suffused sky pieds dominant sky blue cock.
Dominant pieds - body colour as normal but with clear patches - cheek patches violet - eyes black with a white iris
ring - tail clear white or
yellow/blue or combined - wings clear patches - head patch clear if present - feet and legs blue/grey mottled - a full set
of spots are required
for the show bench.
BANDED PIED.
Light green Banded Pied?
The Dominant Pied Light Green is a fine example of it's variety and shows us how the standard of the Banded Pied
was.Thanks to Gerard Lanigan for the use of his picture.
FROSTED PIED.
CLEARFLIGHT- not to be confused with clearwings and often called the continental clearflight.
baby clearflight sky blue. opaline yellow face clearflight sky blue.
Cinnamon grey clearflight
CLEARFLIGHT - as with the normal blue or green series birds - cheek patches violet -eyes black with white iris - tail
clear - wings seven clear primary flights - head patch must be present - spots black - feet and legs blue/grey mottled or
fleshy pink.
DOUBLE FACTOR dominant pies are the result of breeding two dominant pieds together,the young can look very much like
a recessive pied but the eye will have a iris ring unlike the recessive with no iris ring.
Genetically double-factor dominant pieds are different from the usual described above.
Double-factor dominant pieds have very little markings; most of their feathers are clear.
Double factor dominant pieds.
Black eyed selfs.
Courtesy of Wayne Cusack.
Type of Crest
The crested budgerigar is available in three types :full crest, half crest, and tufted. The full crest possesses a crest
very similar in appearance
to that of the Gloster canary. The half crest budgerigar has, as the name leads one to believe, half the adornment of the
full crest. Here the bird only has the crest forward toward the crown. The tufted is the most striking form of the crest.
This budgerigar has the reverse of the cockatiel crest.
Dusters/rares and Composites
THE CLEARBODY - There are two types of clearbodies the Texas and the Easley.The Texas Clearbody is sex-linked, the Easley Clearbody is
dominant .
Texas clearbodies.
Greygreen and Grey Texas Clearbodies courtesy of Daniel Lutolf
Texas Clearbody - body colour white or yellow suffused - cheek patches violet - eyes black with a white iris - wings black markings - flights pale
grey - tail dark blue - feet and legs black/grey mottled.
The standard for the Texas Clearbody is to have no colour in the body feathers leaving only yellow or white,depending if the bird is yellow or
white based of course. The clearbody can have some colour in it's body of up to a 50% dilution, in this case the body colour is stronger towards
the rump and vent area.This variety is dominant over inos and if paired to a lutino or albino you will get clearbody chicks.
Opaline Texas Clearbody Greygreen
The Easley Clearbody.
Easley Clearbody Green.
Blackface / Coalface
The Slate Blue.
Slate is a color-adding factor similar to grey and violet. Slate produces a very dark bluish grey in white based budgies. The darkness of the slate varies slightly according to the dark factor of the bird. Slate, like violet, can be present in a green (yellow-based) budgie, but only produces a darkening effect. True slate only appears on blue (white-based) budgies.
MOTTLED or should this be a pied?
A mottled budgie is hatched looking like a normal budgie. With each moult, more and more of the budgie's feathers grow back clear. The budgie
starts to look somewhat like a pied only with a more random, mottled pattern of clear feathers than the established varieties of pied. The amount
of mottling an individual budgie has varies.
ANTHRACITE.
The anthracite is a very dark greyish black body colour with cheek patches to match.
SADDLEBACKS.
In the saddleback variety which looks very much like an opaline, the budgie's markings are dark grey on the head and into the saddle area of the
shoulders and top of the wings. These markings return to the normal black at the bottom of the wings. Where as the opalines wings are the same
colour as it's body the saddlebacks wings are much lighter in colour, the body color does not appear on the head or wings of the saddleback.
Dark Green
The Brownwing appears visually as a Cinnamon except for the markings being deep dull dark brown, not Cinnamon light brown. It has a full, undiluted
body color (whereas the Cinnamon causes a dilution). Also on hatching chicks do not have red eyes - their eyes, throughout life are dark with a white
iris. This mutation is recessive in inheritance (unlike the cinnamon sex-linked genetics). It is thought to have been a lost mutation, however a few
sources throughout the years have seen this variety emerge and are struggling to revive it.
Have you any pictures of Brownwings ?
HALF SIDERS.
These birds are the result of a breakdown within the orderly cell divisions during the process of reproduction .
Below are some wonderful halfsiders of Mohammed Atef from Egypt.
Light green/Violet Dominant Pied.
Light green / lutino
Many thanks Mohammed for the use of these wonderful budgerigar pictures.
Feather Dusters
Feather Dusters are a mutation produced when two rare genes meet.I have F D as i call him ( pictured below at 42 days old) who eats constantly
to try and supply his body with the nutrients needed to feed the constant feather growth associated with this mutation.I do not expect F D to live
longer than four months he cannot fly, never utters a sound,appears to be blind,deaf and retarded.These birds seldom survive to adulthood.
F D my spangle violet feather duster - Cobalt Feather Duster
Opaline grey feather duster,coursesy of Lee Marshall. Violet feather duster
.
Meet Curly Sue a Cinnamon Greygreen , courtesy of Maryann Rizzo
Yellow Face Grey F D , Thanks Gordon
Rainbow.
A rainbow is a composite budgerigar that carries opaline , clearwing and yellow or golden face on a blue series bird.
West Cumbrian Helicopter S3872 Rung
Japanese Helicopter
A new mutation ? This was bred in Palestine and i am still waiting for news of the siblings and parents,
Please note i am always looking for variety pictures,can YOU help? This page is still under construction.