Morning all,
Yesterday the Red Wattlebirds who had a nest in my front yard fledged two young.
Also yesterday morning at around 0800 as I stopped my car in my driveway I heard a distinctive lorikeet call coming from the top of a tree in my backyard. The bird was sitting at the top of the tree in the open and I very quickly realised
that it wasn’t one of the usual local Rainbow Lorikeets. A quick dash inside for my binoculars and a notebook was grabbed from the car. The quick description that I took is as follows: -orange bill, crown and face reddish orange, breast and collar pale yellowish,
back, upper tail and underparts dirty green, under tail yellow. There was a blackish (?) line just through the eye. As noted above the call was reminiscent of the local Rainbow Lorikeets but slightly higher in pitch. It was about two thirds the size of two
Rainbow Lorikeets that conveniently landed beside the mystery bird before chasing it away. Unfortunately it flew away from me so I was not able to see any underwing colour.
I checked Joe Forshaw and Frank Knight’s book Parrots of the World and the closest bird I can find to the mystery bird is the Iris Lorikeet,
Psitteuteles iris, which is found in Timor and a few close islands. Personally I don’t think that it was this species and more likely a hybrid Scaly-breasted Lorikeet with something but I don’t know what. I don’t think there was any Rainbow Lorikeet
in the bird. Any suggestions gratefully received. It is on my GBS chart as a “hybrid lorikeet”.
Mark
