Alex,
I live in Guildford in WA, backing on to the Swan River a few kilometers east
of Perth. In terms of parrots it's a spectacular place to be, but there are
certainly no red-caps, western rosellas, purple-crowned lorikeet, etc here.
There are rainbow lorrikeets by the hundred; short billed (and I'm pretty sure
some long-billed) corellas, plenty of galahs and a fair share of white tailed
black cockatoos singing their 'hurry home' song as they cruise through. There
is also a female eastern king parrot, no doubt an aviary escapee, that has been
popping in and out of the garden for the past six months. I'm no biologist, but
the trees on the flood plain below my house are not recent additions. I'm
pretty sure they are not an introduced gum. They are some kind of river gum and
offer plenty of nesting opportunities for parrots. Lorrikeets, corellas (by the
thousand), 28 parrots (ringnecks) and galahs make our back garden Parrot
Piccadilly Circus. Sometimes it's hard to sleep at night because of the noise
made by roosting corellas.
I've only lived here for a year or so, but I would love to see how the profile
of local parrot residents has changed over the past few years.
Were there ever western rosellas, purple crowned lorikeets, etc in the
district?
Alex J. Saar wrote:
> >In <>, on 10/01/98
> > at 07:04 AM, "Alex J. Saar" <> said:
> >
> >>In WA, Rainbow Lorikeets were first recorded as an "invasion" early in
> >>1968
> >
> >[snip]
> >
> >>When I first saw them, I too thought of them as a welcome addition. Now I
> >>think of them as any other feral....
> >
> >
> >
> >G'day Alex (and others)
> >
> >I'm unclear why you regard them as on a par with the other ferals?
> >
> >Please explain?
>
> Hmmmm. Let me think again.
> * not naturally here (pre-1968).
> * only here because of eucalyptus plantings by man, namely, lemon-scented
> gum, which is not indigenous in WA.
> * have "taken over" (dominant visible bird; dominant audible bird; dominant
> numerical bird) from the indigenous birds.
> * probably (must be) occupying nesting hollows to the exclusion of
> indigenous birds (red-capped parrot, western rosella, purple-crowned
> lorikeet, etc.)
>
> Cheers
> Alex
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