Do female budgies sing

Answer 1

Although all male passerines except for a few "songbirds without a song" like corvids and waxwings sing, females may or may not sing. The chief regulation factor is ecological region.

In the Enriched World of extratropical Eurasia, the extratropical Americas and New Zealand very few females sing. The very large spring flush of food in highly seasonal climates and exceptionally young and fertile soils creates extremely intense competition between species. As shown by David Tillman in Resource Competition and Community Structure and Jason Weir and Dolph Schluter in "The Latitudinal Gradient in Recent Speciation and Extinction Rates of Birds and Mammals", this causes extremely high extinction rates. Consequently, species in the Enriched World must adapt their behaviour very rapidly to meet fierce competition for the abundant food. Because of two factors:

1. the high density of high-metabolism, energy-hoarding and sound-sensitive mammalian predators in these rich environments
2. that in the cool and damp climates of the Enriched World sound attenuates very slowly

female singing is highly maladaptive because it would attracted these hungry predators to eat adult birds. In such taxa as Icteridae and Furnariidae (plus no doubt others), female song has been lost repeatedly with migrations from the Tropical to the Enriched World.

In the Tropical World of the humid and subhumid tropics, there is usually a regular but small increment in food each year and limited competition producing low extinction rates and high species diversity. Because of this, adult mortality of birds is lower and predatory mammals less dense (though more speciose).

Consequently, it is less maladaptive for females to sing in tropical birds, and many do regularly. There are major exceptions in lekking species such as manakins and hummingbirds where females do all parental duties unaided, colonially nesting species (not uncommon in tropical rainforests) where large aggregations can create noise sufficient to attract predators, and a few species possessing harem polygyny mating systems (Psarocolius). In such species female singing has similar maladaptivity to the Enriched World.

In the Unenriched World of Australia and Southern Africa, there is no inherent annual increment in food at all: rather food supply increases and decreases on nonannual cycles related to ENSO, the Indian ocean Dipole and large-scale global circulation. Consequently, given the hot climates, breeding is nonseasonal or relatively so, and in many years there is no breeding at all. The base food supply is very low due to exceedingly old and nutrient-deficient soils, but sufficient for very high adult survival at low population densities.

In the Unenriched World, females have as much need as males to come into breeding condition rapidly, and the large size of territories means females must play a role in defending them, although many species live in large cooperative breeding groups with many males. Consequently, females of most birds in the Unenriched World sing as much as males, and coordinated duetting is especially common because low adult mortality allows for long-term pair bonding.

Also, because of the inherent quiet in the hot, dry climates of Australia and Southern Africa, female songs attenuate rapidly and cannot attract the low density of mammalian predators.

There are some birds in Australia and Southern Africa where females do not sing, however. Most of these are granivorous or frugivorous and either recent immigrants (some finches in Australia) or polygynous (like widows and bishops).

Answer 2

They do, but not really often. Also, they aren't as friendly as male budgies.