Ian Baird wrote:
Denis’ reminder about the King Parrot is interesting, something that I too, had not properly realised. Although when I think about it a bit, KPs only seemed
to become common in inner north Canberra from about 15-20 years ago. But my recollection of KPs has always been distorted by a memory fixed as an 11 year old visiting Canberra on a primary school trip from Sydney in 1961. We were visiting the Cotter Dam in
a bus which stopped to give everyone a good look at KPs feeding on a hawthorn branch overhanging the edge of the road. It blew me away, being my first sighting of KPs up close and fixed in my mind forever that Canberra was the place to see King Parrots. But
that was a sighting ‘out of town’, not in Canberra itself.
Circa 1970 we asked someone where to find King Parrots in the ACT. Fortunately we asked the right someone who directed us to the Cotter Reserve and a particular feral fruit tree growing there. Following directions we arrived at 9:00 am and located the
tree which bore a heavy crop of small apples and was festooned with breath-catchingly beautiful King Parrots, we’d never seen them anywhere before.
Our mentor also told us King Parrots were often feeding on mast beneath the Pin Oaks along Schick Street – yes, one does need to take care when enunciating that, doesn’t one – Yarralumla. So we’d see them there on a Sunday afternoon and
then pause over Scrivener Dam to watch groups of them overhead just before sundown as they winged westward to their roosts in the forests outside Canberra.
On a freezing morning in July 2000 I recorded my first King Parrots in Holt, in a feijoa adjacent to our driveway. They still drop by there occasionally but more often these days the feijoa is crowded with Crimson Rosellas that have also
developed a penchant for the green fruits of a nearby Cyprus shrub, they must have the digestive prowess of a landfill feral goat.
Then we heard the legend of the man from Forrest who released Common Mynas so we hurried off to Forrest because none of the little tribes people, or the chieftains had seen them. But we were disappointed not to find any mynas – really!
Then we heard that Manuka shops was the place to see mynas so off we went to Manuka and another disappointment. But all was not lost, being Sunday afternoon we took in a movie, got some ice creams and went round the block again, and happy
happenstance!! We could go home and check off Common Mynas on our bird list. That’s just the way we were back then.
John Layton
Holt.
