Happy New Year
No Comments »7th January, 2014; Category: Adelaide Zoo, Aviaries, Botanic Gardens, Garden birds, Parrots and Lorikeets, Zoos
Male King Parrot Adelaide Zoo
Where has the time gone?
I was just getting over Christmas and then WHAM! New Year hits us and now I find that a week – a whole week – of 2014 has gone by without me wishing all my readers a Happy New Year.
Disgraceful.
Someone please slow down the clock – or add another month or two to the calendar. I need an extra few weeks/months in every year to get done the things I plan to do.
Many years ago I had a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon pinned up near my desk at work. The caption read: “God put me on Earth to achieve a certain number of things. Right now I’m so far behind I am going to live forever.” I feel that way right now – and have frequently felt it over recent years.
So with no further ado, let me wish all of my readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
One of the hindrances to not sharing anything new here recently has been the peaceful passing of my mother-in-law. It has meant a flurry of activity, including a rushed trip home from Sydney where I’d hoped to have been out birding a little more. Mum’s funeral was a celebration of the great things about her – not the hardships and ill health of recent years. It was also a time of gathering together family and friends to remember the good times with much laughter.
What about the birds?
Good question.
I’d better get around to telling you about the birds I’ve seen recently. One species I longed to see in my son’s garden in Artarmon was a King Parrot. Even my 5 year old grandson can identify that one because it is a frequent visitor to the garden. Sadly none made an appearance while I was playing with the children during our three week stay.
King Parrot
On a brighter note I did see about 4 Australian King Parrots during our day-long visit to Mt Annan Botanic Gardens at Campbelltown in the south of great Sydney. The light conditions were poor – very overcast – when I tried to photograph them, and the photo below is the best of a poor lot. At least you can see that it is, indeed, a male King Parrot.
The photo at the top of this page is one of my favourites and was taken in one of the walk-through aviaries at Adelaide Zoo here in South Australia.
King Parrot at Mt Annan Botanic Gardens Sydney
Tawny Frogmouth keeps us awake
No Comments »24th December, 2013; Category: Bird Behaviour, Kingfishers, Nocturnal birds, Owls Frogmouths and Nightjars, Parrots and Lorikeets
Tawny Frogmouth
My wife and I are currently staying in Sydney with our son and his family. We are having great fun playing with our two grandchildren age 5 and 2.5. We will be here until Christmas.
Because of the configuration of the house, the spare bedroom is at the back of the house, next to some large bushes and near to some large street trees. Up until recent days the Laughing Kookaburras have woken us before 5am; one morning it was 4:33am. As first light filters through the trees the hundreds of locally resident Rainbow Lorikeets start up their screeching as they fly from tree to tree.
Because of those two noisy resident species we treasure every second of sleep we can get, especially when the grandchildren usually knock on our door well before 7am. So it was a little disconcerting to have a Tawny Frogmouth doing the overnight shift, calling just outside our bedroom window! Fortunately, the call was soft enough not to keep me awake.
Tawny Frogmouth
Purple-crowned Lorikeets at Brown’s Road, Monarto
Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Monarto, South Australia
I have been trolling through a few photos taken over two years ago, looking for some I haven’t shared here on this site. On this occasion I took John Tongue and family birding to a site about 15 minutes’ drive from home. Brown’s Road, near Monarto just west of Murray Bridge here in South Australia is something of a birding mecca for birders in this locality. The Birds SA people, as well as individuals, often arrange field trips to this locality.
Strange as it may seem, after living so close for over 25 years, this was my first visit. It was quite a warm day and the birding was a little slow but we did see a few good species, including the Purple-crowned Lorikeets shown in the photos today. Below I have also shown the vegetation typical of this area. While it is predominantly mallee eucalypt, there are also consideration native pine stands (Callitris spp) and quite a few introduced plant species due to the area being planted up several decades ago.
Purple-crowned Lorikeet, Monarto, South Australia
Bushland, Brown’s Road area, Monarto, South Australia
Crimson Rosella in Murray Bridge
Crimson Rosella
Crimson Rosellas are a common parrot of the eastern states of Australia. Here in South Australia they are largely confined to the south east of the state. A hybrid race called the Adelaide Rosella is common parrot of the Adelaide region, including the Mt Lofty Ranges and the mid-north of the state.
In recent years they have gradually expanded their range east towards our home here in Murray Bridge. I am seeing them here more and more often, including regular visitors to our garden.
To my surprise, we recently had two Crimson Rosellas briefly visit our garden. This is the first that we have observed in nearly 30 years living here. In today’s photos I show the two birds seen – one an adult quite significantly deeper in colour than the Adelaide Rosellas – the other in juvenile plumage.
This interesting observation raises several questions:
- Is this species expanding its range along with the Adelaide Rosella?
- Were these two birds aviary escapes, after all, they are relatively common cage birds in our area?
Further reading:
Crimson Rosella (immature)
Crimson Rosella
Crimson Rosella
Get out of my patch
1 Comment »6th September, 2013; Category: Bird Behaviour, Garden birds, Honeyeaters, Parrots and Lorikeets
Eastern Rosella in Eremophila youngii
We normally have a few Mallee Ringneck parrots hanging around somewhere on our 5 acre property. In the last few years we have also had one Eastern Rosella keeping them company. We don’t see it every day but frequently enough to keep us happy – after all, it is a handsome looking bird.
This particular parrot has taken a liking to the flowers of several of our Eremophila youngii bushes – you can see the flowers in today’s photos. All the bushes have a pink carpet of flowers surrounding their trunks.
Earlier this week we were enjoying watching the rosella eating while we had our breakfast. A sudden flurry of flapping wings and snapping beaks and the parrot flew off at full speed – its tail closely pursued by an very aggressive Red Wattlebird which in turn was followed by a New Holland Honeyeater.
Both of these honeyeater species spend large proportions of their day also feeding on the flowers, so they seemed to be objecting to this interloper elbowing in on their patch. In reality, while both honeyeater species feed on this bush, neither tolerates the other for more than a few seconds. It is an all out territorial war.
And I forgot to mention that both honeyeater species are in breeding mode, so their tolerance level is at its lowest at this time of the year.
Further reading:
- Red wattlebird in a Eremophila bush
- Let’s all have an early morning bath
- The Eastern Rosella is back home
- Mallee Ringnecks feeding young
Eastern Rosella in Eremophila youngii