I’VE SEEN MANY BUDGERIGARS IN my life but never, until recently, in the wild. They’d be in cages in shops, sold as low-maintenance but lively pets. Budgies are, in fact, the most popular pet bird in the world.
But you can also find these vibrant little parrots in the wild. Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) are true Australian natives, travelling in vast flocks across much of the country’s interior, bringing a splash of colour and a healthy dose of noise to the rugged desert outback.
I’ve always been intrigued by wild budgies, as has my husband, Juergen (Yogi). Yet remarkably, despite the fact that Yogi has been a wildlife photographer for three decades, and that we’ve been living in Far North Queensland for two, an opportunity to photograph the species has never arisen. These avian wonders, described by ornithologist John Gould in 1800 as the epitome of liveliness and cheerfulness, had always somehow eluded our cameras. That impasse finally ended in June 2022. Mapping out a wobbly path that would take us across three states, we made it our mission to find and – finally – photograph the all-Australian parrot. The seeds of our journey had been sown two years earlier, when a triple La Niña event (see box brought record rainfall to areas of the south-east.
