--- title: Budgies and canaries — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Budgies and canaries», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Budgies, short for budgerigars, are small parrots from the dry grasslands of Australia, where they fly in huge flocks that look like a green cloud. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Budgies and canaries # Budgies and canaries Lesson 205 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/0/) — Budgies, short for budgerigars, are small parrots from the dry grasslands of Australia, where they fly in huge flocks that look like a green cloud. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/1/) — A pet budgie is a flock bird living in a house. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/2/) — That is why a budgie chatters, whistles and bobs its head all day, why it stares into a mirror as if at a friend, and why it is happiest with another budgie beside it. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/3/) — Canaries are small finches whose males are famous for their songs; long ago coal miners carried them underground because a canary showed the effects of bad gas before people noticed it. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/4/) — Small birds have very delicate lungs, need to fly every day and need more than seeds, so a good owner watches them closely: a fluffed-up, quiet bird may be ill. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/5/) — Budgies are very chatty birds that chatter and whistle a lot, and some pet budgies have learnt to say hundreds of words. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/6/) — All wild budgies are green and yellow; the blue, white and other colours were bred in pet budgies. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/7/) — You can usually tell an adult male budgie from a female by the cere, the bare patch above the beak: often blue in males and brown or pale in females; young budgies have stripes on their foreheads that fade as they grow. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/8/) — A budgie staring at itself in a mirror may treat the reflection like another bird, and budgies are happier with a real budgie as a friend. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/9/) — Head-bobbing usually means a budgie is excited or showing off, and it can also be a sign that it wants food. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/10/) — Male canaries sing the most, and coal miners once took canaries underground because the birds were harmed by dangerous gas before the miners noticed it. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/11/) — Birds' lungs are very sensitive, so cooking fumes and smoke can harm them, and fumes from overheated non-stick pans can kill small birds; cages should not be kept in the kitchen. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/12/) — Pet birds need time out of the cage to fly every day in a safe room, with windows and mirrors covered or marked so the bird does not fly into the glass, and other pets kept out. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/14/) — A budgie that sits fluffed up and still for a long time may be ill and needs a vet quickly, because small birds hide illness until they are very sick. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/205-budgies-and-canaries/15/) — A budgie grinding its beak softly at bedtime is usually content and relaxed, and budgies often sleep standing on one leg with the head tucked into the back feathers. - ← previous: [Goldfish and pond fish: the three-second memory myth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/204-goldfish-and-pond-fish-the-three-second-memory-myth/) - next →: [Parrots: talkers, nutcrackers and long lives](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/206-parrots-talkers-nutcrackers-and-long-lives/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)