I agree with Peter O, and doubt the introduced hypothesis. I have seen and
heard rainbow lorikeets in Aranda with increasing frequency over the last
few years, but also noted them in areas remote from the ACT where I would
not have expected to see them a decade or so ago. I think they are
expanding their range a bit. I do not think they march to the beat of the
same drum as musk lorikeets, particularly to the south of here. I recall a
similar debate on this group several years ago about the naturalness of the
occurrence of little and long-billed corellas, and much speculation about
captive origin of the odd bird that turned up from time to time. Since then
the extraordinary exploding population of little corellas has swept through
Canberra and they are now common all the way to (and up) the coast, and it
is not too far from Canberra where huge numbers of long-billed corellas can
be seen along river courses. One of the difficulties of interpreting too
much from detailed study of a city like Canberra with a great avifauna is
that the data will always be better near the city than for the surrounding
areas, which can give a false impression of new populations of birds
originating from within the OEarea of interest¹, rather than the area of
interest just being a small piece of a larger tapestry.
Cheers, Andrew Cockburn
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