I received the name of the 24500th budgie on 01/17/2008 via e-mail. Tamara from Germany is the proud owner of this anniversary bird called Hugo. And this is his story:

"Hugo lives at our home since August '07. We just had one budgie then, our Sabrina (July '07), but since we're both occupied, I couldn't stand the thought of the lovely little one being alone all day long. She often looked quite sad somehow and therefore one morning I bought Hugo. He is a loud and always active little budgie who loves to gnaw on several things and play tricks on me together with Sabrina. Nowadays, I'm glad that I have taken this decision to buy him. In January, Kiwi and Ben moved in and last weekend, another pair of budgies became members of the flock. I've found these two birds via a forum. Since we have six budgies here, I would describe Hugo as very sociable. He gets along well with all our other birds. Sometimes he behaves like a little macho and lets the hens caress his head, but he won't do the same to them. However, he fears us humans. If I hold a piece of millet in my hand, he is not interested in it at all. But as soon as I put some millet into the cage, he's always among the first ones to arrive there and eat this treat. When he came to our place, he used to be a clumsy fellow. Flying didn't work and also walking on the top of the cage caused him some difficulties. It seemed as if he stumbled after two or three steps. Today he loves to fly and also he doesn't stumble any more most of the time."