I’m impressed by some of the pictures I have seen on this site of what are known as black budgies, the ones with the line pattern from the wings & heads all over their bodies, does anyone know if any of this mutation are in Australia, as I read that they were only known in the Netherlands? I have two birds that I bought when they were young & when they moulted out, they didn’t get clean clear foreheads, like most budgies & I was disappointed, but now I think maybe I could use them to try to bred something like those blacks. I'm not interested in cresteds too much, but are there any other new colours around?

Here is a site I like and when you scroll on the bottom it shows the rarer mutations http://www.budgieplace.com/colors.html

wow lucky you I would love to see pictures of them. Do you know if they are related?

Nerwen...I will post some pics in the next few days, one is in the nest breeding at the moment & the other is not much of a bird [type wise]. They are not related, I bought one in my home town & the other in a town an hours drive away. The are a long way from "black" budgies, but maybe it's a place to start. I have a thought or feeling about those black budgies I have seen in pictures on here & the web...I get the feeling they may be a throw back to how a budgie was, before they became the normal light green wild type, in stead of a new mutation...just a though, it can't be proven I guess.

okay reading this again, I'm wondering if they are Opalines, sometimes the flecking on them is very thick.

 

The pictures would help and it would be good to see some of your birds.

This a picture of one of the birds that didn’t moult out to a clear forehead, I bought it as a youngster, but I think it’s almost one year old, in the picture you will see it has some pin feathers now. It’s only a small bird I bought it for it’s intense yellow, I think it’s a recessive pied. The other one I tried getting a picture, but it didn’t work out & like you asked, it’s a light green opaline hen with black feathers similar, but not as many as Kaz’s second show bird she just bought, the opaline grey. Not a big start to a black budgie, but I like breeding new or different colours, so will try breeding these two birds, later when the hen has had a rest from her current batch.

 

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s133/greenie6666/Pied.jpg

your right it is a recessive pied and they call those caps on the recessive pieds and it will molt out . Cute cute... but I don't believe it has anything to do with the blackfaced gene.

 

 

 

Blackface (melanistic) Budgerigar

I wonder what it would be like to have a grey budgie!

True...

Grey! (Laughing out loud)

excellent picture Daz

there are grey budgies check out the budgies picture our members post them all the time - though I have never seen them in our area you will certainly find them more in yours I bet