Seasons greetings folks,
At the start of November my son and I made a late decision to spend two weeks
in Tassie as an alternative to schoolies on the Gold Coast.
This timing hit the sweet spot when Tasmania was clear of Covid and closed to
NSW and Victoria, so it was easy to get a reasonably priced hire car (they can
be very expensive there) and get into choice accomodation. For example, we had
a choice of cabins at Waldheim (in the park at Cradle Mt). Normally these are
booked solid 6 months in advance.
We were also lucky with the weather, experiencing very little rain, outside of
some thunderstorms that caused flash flooding in Hobart. Indeed we were caught
out by the fine weather with Matt copping sunburn on the day we climbed Barn
Bluff and Cradle Mt.
Due to roadworks in the park, there were no shuttle busses operating after 3:30
pm, so it was very tranquil around Dove Lake late in the afternoon. In the
absence of wind, the silence was mostly broken by honeyeaters. The wombats and
pademelons were of course on mute.
Overall the midlands seemed a bit greener than normal for the time of year,
there was still a fair bit of snow on the high country around the Cradle cirque
and Mt Field, and the flowers were coming on nicely. Indeed, it was nice to get
snow and flowers in the same photo.
Anyhow, we were having an alfresco lunch at the restaurant at the Lake Pedder
Lodge (prior to a jaunt up Mt Sprent) when we were joined at our table by a
Green Rosella. The interesting thing about this individual was that it was
eating a potato chip held in its right foot.
I had been under the impression that parrots were predominantly left footed,
but a bit of research found that a study of 16 species of Australian parrots
published in Royal Society Biology Letters found that 47% were left footers and
33% were right footers. My observations of cockatoos has been that they are
overwhelmingly left footers, so I was wondering if rosellas are more likely to
be right footers?
Is anyone knowledgeable in this area?
Regards, Laurie
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