Shape of my budgies head

Question
Dear Jan,

It's Bartek again, and his pair of budgies :)  Seriously, I'm not sure you can remember me -- which shouldn't be too bad, either, 'cause it just means that my pets have generally been well! Still, what's really important is that I remember you, and that means I can expect a worthy advice :)

Here's what I'm about. We are getting slightly worried about our female budgie, Maciek, who is now about 2,5 yrs old. Since a few days back, we have started noticing a change in the shape of her head. Looking from the front, the forehead seems to have divided into three protuberant parts that are separated by a sort of rifts, which are shallow but noticeable (you might imagine them as very narrow valleys, tapering at the ends) -- those "rifts" start shortly above the cere and continue along the head to end a short distance behind the eyes (but towards the centre line of the head). As a result, you would notice what you might call (gentle) "bulges" (also thinning toward the ends) above each eye (because you have a raised area between a "rift" and the natural concave around an eye). However, the "rift" on the birds left is more conspicuous, and so is the "bulge" on that side.

I wouldn't say that the look strikes me as evident of something really bad -- I'm saying this to give a balance to the description above, which may seem alarming. I just can't tell. I've been wondering if such modelling of the head might not just be natural for the physical development of the bird? Or maybe it's just the feathers growing in such an irregular way (although the bulge shapes are rather sleek)?

Me and my family have tried browsing through some budgie pictures to make a comparison, and indeed on some of them the shades seemed to repeat the pattern, but altogether, there was no conclusion to be drawn: the pictures were few, and besides: budiges tend to "puff" at the taking of a photo and the raised feathers dull the view (this also makes comparing with our male virtually impossible, as he's "puffed" most of the time; apart from that, he may be a tad younger).

Unfortunately, I cannot take a photo of my budgie, but to add some visuals to my descrption I have marked the "rift" lines out on a random picture from the net. You'll find the retouched photo there:

http://tinyurl.com/5pg25

I'll be looking forward to your opinion, Jan. Thanks in advance!

Yours sincerely,
Bartek S.

Answer
Bartek,

  I am sorry it took me so long to get back to you. For some reason your question did not appear until today.

 I wish I could be of more help to you but I can not determine what is going on with your bird from the picture It certainly does not sound normal.

 Please try to get your bird to an avian vet as soon as you can. Let me know what they find.


Jan