Penny Olsen’s Flight of the Budgerigar

The Budgerigar is arguably Australia’s best-known bird, yet many of us aren’t aware that it is natively Australian. Or that today’s super-sized, show budgie is as different from the free-living original as a chihuahua from a wolf. A new book sets to change that.

Packed full of illustrations, including works of art and contemporary colour photographs, Flight of the Budgerigar is a fascinating visual history of one of Australia’s most iconic birds.

Author Penny Olsen is an Honorary Professor in the Division of Ecology, Evolution and Genetics at The Australian National University. After a career as a field biologist and ecological consultant, she is now mostly occupied writing books about Australian natural history and its recorders, both artistic and scientific. She has written more than 25 books, including Australian Predators of the Sky (2015) and Australia’s First Naturalists: Indigenous Peoples’ Contribution to Early Zoology (2019)

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