Rainbow Lorikeets over Union Court ANU, 10:15 am

[martin butterfield <>]

It would be fair to say that Hawker was the most reliable place in the ACT to get a tick for Rainbow Lorikeets.  This isn't reflected too well in the GBS as there have only been 3 years in which there has been a site active in Hawker
(and Rainbow Lorikeets were only reported in one of those years.)

The species has been seen in 35 suburbs of Canbera and/or Queanbeyan over the first 27 years of the GBS (and in at least one suburb in 26 of the 27 years) .  The number of suburbs each yearhas fluctated over time, but appears to have been risng recently.

The suburbs in which Rainbow Lorikeets were reported in the greatest number of years were Aranda (21 years)  Cook (12) Macquarie (9) Page (8) Weetangera (6).  It is probably not a coincidence that these are all suburbs relatively close to Hawker.  On the Southside the most frequent contributor has been Kambah (6) - interestingly 3 of those years were years 7 - 9 (1987-1990) and then a gap until reports occured in year 21 and two other years since then.

In terms of Dimitris' original post in this thread, there has only been one report of the species from Acton - a single bird in year 5.

Martin

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:35 PM, John Brannan <> wrote:

For several years now, there's been an established colony of Rainbow Lorikeets roosting and breeding in woodland near the Pinnacle in Hawker, probably descended from escapees. For many years, that was, I believe, the only place you could see R. Lorikeets in Canberra. But in the last couple of years, they've obviously been spreading outwards judging from reports of sightings in the Weston Creek area and now the ANU. I also noticed them appear in Florey for the first time last Spring-Summer, feeding on the flowering ironbarks. Whether a growing local population of R. Lorikeets is a good thing or not I will leave for others to decide.

John Brannan

Anthony Overs wrote:

Dimitris, you need to get out more! Rainbow Lorikeets are an everyday bird in Hawker and Scullin now. There must be something flowering nearby to me in Scullin, with up to eight birds at a time flying around! And dropping my boy and picking him up at Hawker primary, I hear or see them every time.

Anthony

2009/9/4 Dimitris Bertzeletos < <mailto:m("hotmail.com","risingphoenixdim");" target="_blank">>>

   Hello All,

   Had  pair of Rainbow Lorikeets fly over union court just 20
   minutes ago. My first sighting of the species in the ACT. =)

   Cheers!

   D.

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------------
John Brannan
Canberra, Australia
Email:
Phone: (+612) 6258 6038   Fax: (+612) 6258 6238


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