{"id":99,"date":"2017-05-17T12:09:55","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T12:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/?p=99"},"modified":"2019-02-21T13:11:39","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T13:11:39","slug":"budgieboom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/17\/budgieboom\/","title":{"rendered":"Budgie Boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Budgerigars are best known as popular cage birds, but for every budgie behind bars there are thousands living free in the wild.<\/span><\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"\n

Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus<\/em>)\u00a0are small, highly social parrots native\u00a0to the Australian outback. The desert\u00a0environment in which they live is one\u00a0of the hottest, driest places on Earth,\u00a0and evolution has therefore equipped\u00a0these birds with the necessary survival\u00a0strategies. Able to endure prolonged\u00a0periods without drinking, budgerigars\u00a0obtain water from the grass seeds\u00a0they eat instead. Another survival\u00a0trick is to lead a nomadic lifestyle, wandering far and wide\u00a0in search of food and water\u00a0sources. When times are good,\u00a0the birds gather in small flocks\u00a0and travel locally from place\u00a0to place. Once a food supply is\u00a0exhausted, they move on to the\u00a0next source.<\/p>\n\"\"\n\"\"\n

Budgerigar superflocks can be made up of\u00a0many thousands of birds, travelling many\u00a0hundreds of miles in pursuit of standing\u00a0water. Many of the birds die when they\u00a0can\u2019t find enough to eat, but others survive\u00a0and keep searching, following thunderstorms\u00a0and looking for places where the\u00a0rains have come, and the grasses grow.<\/p>\n

View the full gallery<\/a> of images, or download our full story PDF, including text,\u00a0<\/span>here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Images by Roland Seitre unless otherwise stated.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more Naturepl photo stories, visit our gallery here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Budgerigars are best known as popular cage birds, but for every budgie behind bars there are thousands living free in the wild. \u00a0 Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus)\u00a0are small, highly social parrots native\u00a0to the Australian outback. The desert\u00a0environment in which they live is one\u00a0of the hottest, driest places on Earth,\u00a0and evolution has therefore equipped\u00a0these birds with the…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[14,15,16,17],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","category-photographers","tag-budgerigar","tag-animal-masses","tag-flock","tag-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}