Home of the Rainbow

[khiemtran]

The tiny hole in the tree is barely noticeable, but, if you watch carefully, you may spot who lives there...



Whoever it is will need to be careful, as a pair of black-shouldered kites roost in the pines next door.



The answer turns out to be a family of rainbow lorikeets. It's not hard to see how they got their name.



If you wait long enough, you might see one of them ducking inside.



Going...



Going...



Gone!

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

How marvellous!

And that is a remarkably furtive expression on such a loudly coloured bird...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It probably didn't help that I was standby nearby with a camera while it was trying to enter its secret lair. Although if I was a lorikeet, the black-shouldered kite looking down would make me pretty furtive too...

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely! :) Kites as well as lorikeets.

The Denver Zoo has a Lorikeet Adventure in which one enters an enclosure with 20-30 lorikeets in it. One can purchase syrup to feed them, so of course I do. I did that on Monday, and contemplate another go tomorrow, when Chun Woo will be at a hockey camp in the vicinity....

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Some of our neighbours used to feed honey and bread to the lorikeets outside every day. Then they moved away and the lorikeets kept showing up in hope...

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

...but the queen had left her parlour. *sigh*

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

This s an amazing series of photos. I can just imagine the wonder at seeing these guys in the flesh... but I'd flub the photos from excitement, if it was me. Thank you!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, they're actually quite mundane over here. I was showing a Finnish friend around campus once and he stopped in mid-sentence to shout "WHAT'S THAT!" It turned out it was a rainbow lorikeet perching about half a metre from his face, which none of the rest of us had thought important enough to register...

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

They are very pretty birds. I've seen them in zoos, but not wild, obviously. Though having said that, we do have wild parakeets in London.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

They're surprisingly good colonists. I grew up on the southern coast of Australia, where there were comparatively few species of parrot. Now, when I go back there, there are lots of new species that have gradually made their way south over the decades.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! Seeing him vanish into the tree is excellent.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't seen it the first time. Then I had to wait till it happened again, so I could catch it with the camera.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

What gorgeous colors!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, they're spectacular to look at. There are lots of colourful parrots around here, but the rainbow lorikeet is unusual for having so many different colours.