“The red, iron bird engaged its landing gears, sending her wheelie feet to hang. Her wings retracted leaving reminges of the ‘bird’ flapping in the wind as the aircraft was guided to a descent onto the airfield tarmac.

“A ‘boomp’ followed, confirming a touch down. My constant travels have taught me well to judge the skills and experience of pilots by how smooth and soft the ‘boomp’ they made. Sometimes, I would whisper into the air-hostess’s ear, turning dimpled smiles into laughters as I made to the exit doorway. I knew only too well my soft whispers would eventually get to the Captain’s ears.

“‘G-DAY! Welcome to the sunshine state of Australia-Queensland’.

“Peering through the glass-cabin hole, I thought it was strange there wasn’t a feathered bird in the airport vicinity to greet me.

“It was later brought to my knowledge that Coolangatta airport authorities actually have field marshals to skirt-drive around the airfield to hoot off birds that fly too near their iron cousins for comfort!

“It has been known that birds do get sucked into propellers, causing kamikaze bird deaths, bad accidents and expensive repairs and maintenance.

“Have I arrived at the other end of the rainbow? Yes!

“It wasn’t long into my birding session that a small party of gregarious Rainbow Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus) appeared and made a bee-line for the native blooms of Queensland Umbrella trees Schefflera actinophylla.

“What resulted was a circus like display of acrobatic skills these musical screechers so well known for, as they trapezed amongst sprays of colourful, red flowers amongst spoke-like umbrella stems of their foliages. | Image 1, 2, 3 4|.

“They wasted no time to dig in and relished the blooms, buds, seeds, nectar and all, pollinating along the way as they carried their hooked pollen-dusted beaks to the next fresh floral sprays. |Image 5, 6|

“The eastern seaboard area, skirting from Cape York to right down South Australia like a crescent, is prolific with this moluccanus race species identified by their greenish yellow collars.

“Rainforests, woodlands, eucalypt forests, open forests, gardens, heaths and urban areas with trees are their favourite areas of habitat. While there are 3 more subspecies or race to contend with, those of the rubritorquis variation in northern part of the Australian continent have red collars.

“In certain field guide books, it is categorised as a separate species called, Red-collared Lorikeet (Trichoglossus rubritorquatus.).

“Surprisingly, all races are vagrants to Tasmania… Not distant flyers?

“Rainbow Lorikeets are mainly frugivores. They have brush like tongues to lap up nectar and pollens. Blossoms, seeds and also berries are their favourites and Australia’s native Bottlebrush species, especially the red Callistemon citrinus is one of their favourite raiding haunts whom they share with their Scaly Breasted Lorikeet (Trichoglossus chlorolepidotus) cousins. |Image 7|

“One can only imagine during the fruit and flowering seasons, how noisy these birds do get and non-birders detesting them for being deprived of peace and quiet…

“However, despite their continuous screeching and chattering, these gregarious birds continued to be treated fondly by residents and bird lovers with generous food handouts in their garden homes.

“Conservationists would say that it is never proper to be feeding wild birds especially with processed foods for fear of overly food dependence. It is also unknowingly introducing bacteria via feeders’ hands and contaminated food itself.
However having said that, some hardy species especially the urban dwellers have showed no adverse effects to such and have multiplied instead.

“So too the ugly word , ecotourism that hangs on the other end of the balancing scale to balance the upkeep of Nature Parks and Wild Bird Sanctuaries with tourist dollars.

“A little commercial corner is not uncommonly set aside these days for tourists to feed birds especially lorikeets. It is a compromised situation hopefully under controlled conditions and everyone goes home happy.

“How could any person ignore such a colourful bird of rainbow colours? While many residents would see just a colourful bird zoomed passed, how many would actually get close enough to admire the mosaic of plumage, this species presents to live up it’s name or be models to the likes of Vincent Van Gogh?

“I was taught memory pegs during school days to remember the colours and reciting them in correct sequence order, counting from the outer bow inwards. The ‘ROYAL OF YORK GAINS BATTLE IN VAIN’.

“Readers taking the first alphabet of each word to represent the colours would get - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. See if you can seek out the 7 splendours of the ubiquitous Rainbow Lorikeet attached. Image 8

“Join me to enjoy some quality birds of the sunshine state in the next few articles and why Australians and emigrants simply love it there despite the presence of a hole in the depleted ozone, layered sky above.”

AVIAN WRITER DAISY O’NEILL PENANG MALAYSIA
© CHASING RAINBOWS.

On 14th December 2007 at about 0745 hours, the morning silence was suddenly broken by the loud squawking of about 20 Long-tailed Parakeet (Psittacula longicauda) in my garden.

Most of the birds descended on my ceram palms (Rhopaloblaste ceramica) while a few were on one of my Alexandra palms (Archontophoenix alexandrae). This latter palm was bearing female flowers and the birds were crowding on the inflorescence branches.

And they were busy pecking on the female flowers and eating them.

Now, palm flowers are unisexual, meaning there are male (left bottom) and female (left top) flowers. These are borne in threes on massive inflorescence branches. Usually there are one female flanked by two male flowers. The male flowers mature first followed by the female.

In the case of this Alexandra palm, the male flowers had developed earlier and all that were left were female flowers. There were bees around these flowers as they secrete nectar. So these parakeets were feasting on the nectar given out by the female flowers.

Blue Lorikeet (Vini peruviana) is a cute bird usually seen singly or in pairs, sometimes even in small groups (left). Extremely noisy, their high pitched, hissing screech, scheee-scheee scheee-scheee announce their presence even before they are seen. They are also excessively active, climbing the branches in search of flower nectar or flying around, even hovering as if suspended in the air.

The bird has another name that fits it well, Nunbird, as the blue-white plumage of the adult makes it appear like a nun’s habit.

Ong Tun Pin recently visited Tahiti and had an exciting encounter with the Nunbird:

“This is the bird that brought us lots of fun. Simply searching for them with my wife among coconut palms (luckily not too tall) is itself a unique experience. There were probably two pairs of the globally threatened lorikeet feeding on coconut nectar on a small islet about half the size of a football field.

“Not too hard to locate them by listening to their sharp chi-chi-chi call, but hard to take photos as they flew from one coconut palm to another.

“This lorikeet looks black and white in the field. Don’t you think it looks like a nun?

“I had to run around on this small touristy island to chase after the lorikeets. Luckily, other tourists had just left and we had the whole islet to ourselves.

“Listening to these cute lorikeets and on an idyllic coconut grove islet beside a turquoise blue lagoon is the best a bird watcher can ask for.”

The bird is confined to Cook Islands, Society Islands and the westernmost of the Tuamotu Islands. Although also named as Tahitian Lory, it appears to be extinct from Tahiti, although there has been a report of an attempt to reintroduce it in the 1940s. The bird is designated internationally VULNERABLE, the threat coming from rat (Rattus rasttus) and feral cats on the islands these bird are found in. The nest is a hole in a tree or a rotting coconut that is still attached to the palm.

Input and images by Ong Tun Pin.

References:
1. Forshaw, J. M. (1973). Parrots of the world. N.J.: T.F.H. Publications, Inc.
2. Forshaw, J. M. (2006). Parrots of the world: An identification guide. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Robson’s Birds of South-east Asia lists the subspecies of the Red-breasted Parakeet (Psittacula alexandri) occuring in the region as fasciata. Local birders have never been seriously interested in the bird, probably because it is an escapee. Also, with a pair of binoculars, it is not easy to seriously study the detailed characters in the field. However, with many photographers now showing an interest in birds, we have begin to accumulate a collection of excellent images that can be closely examined and even sent to the relevant experts for ID confirmation.

With the assistance of Joseph M Forshaw, an international expert on parrots, we have established that in at least one population of these birds in Changi, the subspecies is alexandri. In the image below, the two males on either side of the mating pair are distinctly alexandri. And according to Forshaw, the mating male shows a slight tendency towards fasciata as the breast is slightly darker.

The mating female, however, cannot be alexandri as the lower mandible is black, and the female of that subspecies has coral-red bill. However, according to Forshaw (2006): she has “the deep pink of breast… continuing up side of neck in front of emerald-green hindneck;” and this indicates that she is a female fasciata (left, arrow). The adult female of this subspecies has “bill entirely black” while this bird has red upper mandible but black lower mandible, indicating she may be a subadult.

We subsequently located another mating pair: the male was an alexandri while the female a possible older subadult fasciata with black lower and slightly black upper mandible (right). As the juvenile of this latter subspecies has red bill (below), it is most probably that with maturity the lower mandible turn black, soon to be followed with the upper also becoming black. With full adulthood the female develops a fully black bill.

As Forshaw added: “Juvenile fasciata does have an all-red bill, and the adult female has an all-black bill, so we can expect subadults to have varying amounts of red and black in the bill.

“Of course, it is probable that alexandri x fasciata adult females will retain permanently the mixed red-black bill, or this could apply even to adult female alexandri with some past gene flow from fasciata. I am more confident that the Singapore population is a mix of the two subspecies, even though alexandri-looking birds now may be becoming more prevalent.”

Our population of Red-breasted Parakeet originated from the caged birds trade. Both alexandri and fasciata must have escaped into the wild and are now breeding successfully, resulting in hybrids between the two subspecies. Obviously we need more field observations, especially the developmental stages of the female fasciata bill.

Reference:
Forshaw, J. M. (2006). Parrots of the world: An identification guide. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press (Plate 42).

Input by Joseph M Forshaw and YC, images by Chan Yoke Meng.

Red-breasted Parakeet (Psittacula alexandri) (above left), a feral resident, is breeding and making its presence felt. Slowly but surely, it is replacing the resident Long-tailed (Psittacula longicauda) (above middle) and the other feral, Rose-ringed (Psittacula krameri) (above right).

The bird was first recorded in 1943 as a feral species, after which there were more sightings. However, there were no reports of breeding until the 1980s.

Parakeets usually pair for life. Courtship occurs mostly around nest entrances or in trees nearby. This may take the form of allopreening. The birds nest in tree cavities and several pairs may nest in the same or nearby trees. They often make use of nesting cavities once used by woodpeckers and barbets, frequently enlarging them before use. Three to four eggs are laid on a layer of wood dust at the bottom of the hollow.

A small colony of Red-breasted has established a permanent nesting site in Changi Village among the old angsana trees (Pterocarpus indicus) along the main road. The image on the left shows a nesting pair, with the male perching outside and the female just emerging from the cavity.

The male is a possible nominate P. a. alexandri but the subspecies of the female is questionable. Why? Her lower mandible is black while the upper is partially black. The female of this subspecies alexandri has coral red bill.

The images above show a chick in the nesting cavity being fed by a female Red-breasted. The chick peeping out of the nest cavity (above left) has red bill, as is the case with this subspecies. However, the female has coral red upper but blackish lower mandible (above centre and right). This is very unlike the female in the other image.

In a further posting, the subspecies of the Red-breasted will be further discussed.

Input by YC and Melinda Chan, images by Chan Yoke Meng.