"Who is a clever boy? " News article on the Melopsittacus

Churchill was greatly upset and Onassis gave him a replacement budgie named Byron that proved somewhat irascible and was sent to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, also a well-known budgie breeder, in the hope he could curb its biting. Whether it was this bird rehabilitated or another altogether is unclear, but there was a budgerigar beside Churchill right up until the final months of his life.

The budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, a *colourful little Aussie bird, has been painted by masters, coveted by royals, rendered in the *finest porcelain, modelled in plastic, dipped in *batter, baked in pies, bred artificially in test tubes and depicted on the postage stamps of more than 30 nations from Antigua to Zambia. And it’s a bird with an astonishing capacity to bring out *tenderness in great and powerful men.

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Betrisher said:

Well, if you look in a scientific taxonomy book, it'll say they're not cockatoos. But if you look in their determined little faces, you really do wonder. So I was only half joking, y'know?

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