Colours & Mutations
The Undulated Parrakeet
Budgerigars are birds of beauty,They are available in myriad colours and pattern combination,they are easy to manage and breed,they adapt to most climate conditions and make wonderful pets.
Budgerigars were introduced to England by John Gould in 1840,soon after a few arrived into America and by the late 1980s dealers were flooding Europe.In 1894 Australia put a ban on the export of parakeets but by this time breeders were producing enough chicks for the market place.
From this little green,yellow and black budgie we have created a wonderful birds that can leave you licking your lips with admiration.
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I have no intentions of supplying lot's of references that will only confuse budgie owners ,genes,chromosomes,genotypes and x and y factors are out,these will be replaced with illustrations and simple colour identication.
Budgerigar Colours/Mutations
All budgies fall into one of two basic varieties. Either they have a yellow pigment or they lack a yellow pigment base and are therefore white based.Normally this is easy to tell because the base colour is visible in the mask and between the head and wing markings.(Except the yellow faces).
Light Greens..
Basic Genetics:
Yellow-base - dominant
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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.
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YELLOW BUDGERIGARS
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.
Lutino chicks Double factor yellow spangle Dark eyed clear yellow.
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.
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 greywing sky blue.
Greywing Mauve
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.
Full bodied Greywing. Greywing Sky blue
OPALINES.
Now i have introduced the opaline greywing 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.
Cinnamon light green Cinnamon light green baby courtesy of Pete Young
FALLOWS.
The Fallow is a recessive variety and appears in blue, grey and green forms, the colour being pale at the top ans 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 fallow with iris ring English fallow without iris
German fallow 
LACEWING.The Redeyed Lacewing, a bird that has cinnamon-brown markings on head, neck, mantle and wings,and a clear body colour which can be either yellow or white.Well defined cinnamon coloured spots are also present,the feet and legs are pink and the cocks cere will be flesh coloured similar to the Inos.
Yellow and white lacewings.
SPANGLES - 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 color ( 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.
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.
Violet Texas Clearbody / Green Texas Clearbody/Recessive Pied Clearbody/Green Clearbody.
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.
The Easley Clearbody.
Easley Clearbody Green. Double Factor Easley Clearbody.
The Blackface .
Blackface greygreen Blackface cobalt
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.
A young slate hen ,thanks Ernesto Nieto.
MOTTLED or should this be a pied?
Mottled varieties.
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 anthracie 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.
