Celebrity budgies

LONG BEFORE UK pop star Robbie Williams, Sparkie Williams was a leading recording star of his day. Sparkie had a vocabulary of 583 words, including eight complete nursery rhymes. He first came to the world’s attention in 1958 after beating 2768 other entrants in a BBC talking bird competition.

He went on to front a birdseed campaign and make a record that sold 20,000 copies. On its B side he plays gangster Sparkie the Fiddle and Australian actress Lorrae Desmond plays his moll.

Sparkie toured the country with owner Mattie Williams until he died, aged eight, in 1962. Acclaimed by Guinness World Records as the world’s most outstanding talking bird, Sparkie can now be seen stuffed at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK.

Australia’s own celebrity budgerigar,

Billy Peach, also made recordings and appeared in a 1947 documentary film called Time Off.

Billy had a vocabulary of about 500 words and attracted lines of fans when he appeared at Sydney and Melbourne department stores in the 1940s. He also did his bit for the war effort, raising 40 times his own weight in coins when he was exhibited at Taronga Zoo spouting patriotic phrases such as “What are you doing, pet: making socks for soldiers?”

The most famous modern budgie by far was Disco. As the first true budgerigar internet superstar, with his own YouTube channel and videos viewed more than 19 million times, Disco the Parakeet was compulsory viewing for many.

The New York bird’s Facebook blurb said he could “beatbox, snore, bark and meow better than some cats”. He even learnt some Swedish to talk to a feathered fan base in Malmö.

Disco’s January 2017 death prompted an outpouring of sentiment on social media with his death notice attracting 10,000 likes, 3700 consoling comments and 1300 shares.