Tuesday 5 April 2011

King for a day

Australian king-parrots (Alisterus scapularis) are abundant in these rainforests. I often hear and see them flying over the house in the late afternoon, but they rarely land in the garden. A while back, a couple of young male king-parrots dropped in, nibbled at the bottlebrush (Callistemon) and then flew off.

These fellows had almost moulted out of their olive green juvenile feathers, but hadn't quite made it into the immaculate scarlet plumage of adulthood.




They haven't paid another visit yet, but there are plenty of other birds around to make up for them.