A look at the popular gardening magazines of the 1930s confirms the popularity of bird fancying of all types - a garden aviary was de-rigueur among those with a big enough garden. The hobby of both keeping and breeding budgies was popular enough for the formation of the Budgerigar Society.
As most of us know, you can get budgies with markings in a variety of colours - blue, white, yellow, green. And the most common colour as the 1930s progressed was green. Search for the phrase "Green budgerigar" in the 1930s section of the British Newspaper Archive and the number of hits steadily increases as the decade goes on. There is a notable high peak in 1939. Most of these hits are sales adverts - or appeals for missing budgies.
Fife Free Press, 8 June 1935:
Lost, green budgerigar, blue tail, finder rewarded at Evanton, Dysart Road
Lost on Wednesday 5th June, green budgerigar, reward, Hendry Road
Breeders worked hard to get that perfect shade of green for their budgies. W. Watmough of the Budgerigar Society wrote for the Yorkshire Observer in July 1936:
"Light green is the colour of the ancestors of all domesticated budgerigars. I do not think that for beauty of colour, markings and form they have ever been excelled by any other [colour]" The Budgerigar Society's standard was a "rich, bright, grass green."
It seems that though the urge to control nature was strong, those breeding budgies wanted that control to look as natural as possible.
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