Adelaide Rosellas in a flying visit
Adelaide Rosella
The Adelaide Rosella is a race of the widespread Crimson Rosella. It is confined to the Adelaide region, the Mt Lofty Ranges and through to the mid north of South Australia. It is relatively common in that range and shows considerable colour variations, ranging from a washed out orange through to almost red.
I live in Murray Bridge which is about 80km SE of the Adelaide CBD and about 40km from the ranges. When we first moved here 30 years ago I had to travel 30 – 40km west to see this species. Over the years the range appears to have drifted further east and sightings in and around Murray Bridge are becoming far more common. I can’t claim this as a resident species in our garden, but sightings are becoming quite regular every few months so it might happen in the future.
On the weekend just gone we had two land in the Eremophila youngii bush in our front garden. This bush has been in flower for some time and the local honeyeaters love feeding on the nectar. The resident Mallee Ringnecks also feed on the flowers. These visiting rosellas came early in the morning and sat there briefly in full sunlight. I was just emerging from showering and shaving, and my camera was at the other end of the house. Naturally they flew off before I could take a photo.
One day.
One day they’ll pose nicely for me and I’ll be able to improve on the photo above. Meanwhile, I’ve included a close up photo of the flower (see below) as well as one showing a New Holland Honeyeater in the bush.
Eremophila youngii in our garden
New Holland Honeyeater feeding in Eremophila youngii
Trevor, I love your photos and blog. We have moved to Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula, abotu 90 kls from Melbourne. We have up to 50 birds visiting our garden (1/2 acre) every day and we do feed them, but sparingly! The crimson rosellas are such perky, cheerful birds and we also have king parrots,rainbow lorikeets, sulphur crested cockies, various small lorikeets, wattle birds, honey eaters and many others. The orchards and forests here attract them. The cockies can be destructive, but we put dog and act repellent on the garden and it seems to work. Lee
Hi there Lee,
Thanks for visiting my birding site, and for leaving comments. sorry about the delay in replying to you – life gets very hectic at times, even in retirement.
I have very fond memories of a visit to your area over 10 years ago now. My wife was attending a 2 week conference at Moorooduc Primary school. We stayed in a local caravan park at Hastings and I’d drop her off at school in the morning, then go birding throughout the peninsula until it was time to pick her up again. saw some wonderful birds.
More recently we have had several quick visits to the Cranbourne Botanic Gardens while passing through.