Just back from a birding and rock art foray up to Musgrave and Lakefield, We
looked for Golden-shouldered parrots on one afternoon and two early mornings,
only finding them on the final morning Sept 24 and then with considerable
difficulty, not a great time of year to locate this species. Sue Shepard from
Artemis Station was very helpful as always, our thanks to her.
Anyway, we found at least 7 of the parrots, tracked by their high-pitched
calls- I have posted two cuts on IBC (Internet Bird Collection) and Xenocanto,
neither of which had any for this species- one is the surprisingly Pale-headed
Rosella-like flight and anxiety call, the other the feeding and contact call. I
was surprised to find the birds feeding in what looks to be some kind of wattle
tree, nibbling away at the yellow-green flower stalks, and not feeding on the
ground at all like all my previous sightings have been. A limited search of the
literature (HBW, and Australian Parrots by Forshaw) basically lists grass seeds
of various species as the food sources and makes no mention of wattles being
used. I had the wrong search image and was basically looking for them to fly up
off the ground, it was only by hearing the calls that we found the very
unobtrusive birds feeding in the trees. There were at least 6 female plumage
birds including one with almost no tail which I suspected might be a juvenile,
it was always with a female plumaged bird- I will post shots of these on the
IBC shortly plus a video clip of a fine adult male feeding in the wattles.
Phil Gregory
Website 1: Http://www.sicklebillsafaris.com
Website 2: Http://www.cassowary-house.com.au
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