Rosella progress and photos

["Peter Ormay" <>]

The diet of parrots has fascinated me since I discovered that Red-capped Parrots ate caterpillars and dropped the empty skins on unsuspecting picnicers below a few years ago. It is well known that YT Black Cockatoos often feed on wood grubs but was surprised to read in 'Birds in the Australian High Country' that Crimson Rosellas, Eastern Rosellas and SC Cockatoos include 'insects and their larvae' in their diet. I always thought that they dined on seeds and other vegetable matter like fruit and nectar.  Swift Parrots are nectar feeders mainly but also eat fruit etc and 'insects and their larvae, particularly lerps and caterpillars of various kinds'.  I wonder how dependent Swifties are on flowering eucalypts during their annual sojourn on the mainland?

 

Glossy Black Cockatoos were not included in the above book. Were they not known to occur in the ACT (and the rest of the High Country) years ago and is their diet restricted to Casuarina stricta (Allocasuarina verticillata) seed? Perhaps someone with HANZAB could enlighten me.

Regards

Peter