SOME of the world's finest budgerigars will be on view in Cleethorpes this weekend.

On Sunday, the Memorial Hall will host the annual Cleethorpes Classic – one of the top exhibitions in the UK birdkeeping calendar.

Show budgerigars are nothing like their pet counterparts – they are bred for superior body size, shape, posture, condition and plumage quality.

But most of all, the judges will be looking at the birds' heads. The biggest and best have become known as "buffalo-heads".

Well-known budgie enthusiasts include the Queen, who has an aviary at Windsor, and former Olympic shotputter Geoff Capes, who specialises in a variety known as pieds at his bird ranch.

Airline tycoon Sir Richard Branson's first business enterprise, as a schoolboy, was breeding budgies, while former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine was also an enthusiast until his stock was wiped out by a blood-sucking parasite called red mite.

East Lincolnshire has some of the top breeders in the world, including Chris Snell, Allan Michael and Mike Ballard, all of whom are also judges.

Grimsby man Mr Snell, a former world champion, is chairman of the Cleethorpes Budgerigar And Foreign Bird Society, which is hosting the show.

"It should be a terrific event," he says.

"I'm really looking forward to see how the quality of the birds compares with previous years."

The exhibition, which will be open to the public from 2.15pm, will also feature a range of other birds to see, possibly including various parrot-like species.