Basil makes my birds nuts

I am sure that basil is like some sort of wonderdrug that makes budgies go crazy-insane. Monty is currently singing to his food (the aforementioned basil) dancing around like a loon, not sure what song he's singing but maybe it goes something like this:

"basil basil, you are so green and tasty and leafy and I want to bite bite bite you"

I am beginning to understand the inner workings of a budgies mind.

Will someone please tell Roswell that there are lots of interesting things to bite here such as cuttlefish, iodine blocks, branches etc and that he does not need to bite the budgie playground every few minutes - it's really noisy because the wood is quite hard and we're frightened it will hurt his poor beak.

Now all four budgies are making a swiss cheese style pattern in the remaining basil leaves and totally ignoring the fig that I had cunningly placed beside it in yet another failed attempt to get them to eat fruit..