Hearing a lot of chattering outside my window, I saw two green parrots on a far branch opposite. Lorikeets, I assumed as there had been a lot of those about in weeks gone by. But these were too big, surely?
Leaning past my desk to look down, I could see the bird water dish along the fence. It had only before attracted a sole Peewee, or that I had noticed.
Now there was a mighty flurry and fluttering of seven of these same green parrots, jockeying for turns at sipping the water, swapping places on the fence, teetering and balancing on the wire.
There were nine of them all up. But what were they?
Then my memory of my Mountain Kingies started to rev up. These looked like female King Parrots, which are mostly green except for the red lower breast and belly… were they young ones, who have similar colours to the females? The young have brown irises instead of grey, but I was too far away to see such detail.
There I was used to having plenty of the more colourful males about, with much more red on head and front…and an occasional female.
Never had I seen a whole gang like this.
One of them might have been developing the male colours, as it had a paler green strip along its wing.
They took off very quickly. Had it been a brief pit stop for the whingeing kids? ‘Mum, I’m thirsty!’
Mental note: keep that bird water dish full! Who knows what else it may attract?
Great to hear, Karen. Plus plovers no doubt!
Hi Sharyn
I’ve been having some of these visitors in my garden too and had come to the same conclusion. Four of them were here on Tuesday and then three yesterday. so good to know that breeding of our feathered friends is going ahead as usual in this mad world. Also in my area…baby PeeWees, Plovers, Butcherbirds, Crested Pigeons. Just waiting for the resident Currawongs and Kookies to get in on the act. So important to keep the waterbaths full in this dry Spring.