Welcome Back YTBCs

From the kitchen window.

Such beautiful birds and a joy to have around, even though I love my fruit trees!

Their habitat in the Adelaide Hills is taking a beating from smaller scale individual clearings and general "tidying up" for houses, though so many smallish clearings add up to fairly large scale habitat loss, especially as it is the understorey food sources like hakeas that tend to "go" because they are "fire ladders" to canopies in bushfires.

http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Calyptorhynchus-funereus

with bird calls

The Adelaide Rosella

Adelaide Rosellas are a sub-species of the Crimson Rosella with rather subdued colouring; they are among the most numerous individuals here of any of the local birds species.
 
There are three nesting boxes that suit them in the trees here, which might account for their numbers, I suppose.
I provide shelter, given the amount of clearing of trees in the valley, but I do not feed them.
Many neighbours do put out commercial seed mixes prepared for parrots.

The combination of increasing numbers of open/cleared patches for lawns etc and additional food probably accounts for the increase in Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, Lorikeets and Corellas moving into the area in the last few years.

 There is some angst over this as they can be seriously destructive to housing and people often realise, too late, that their own activities have encouraged them (AND reduced critical habitat for the Yellow Tailed Blacks).

This pair have raised young for each of the past three years.
They vigorously defend "their" nesting box against other rosella pairs, flying at them each time they come too close.

We have been lucky enough to see individuals take their first flight; the adults' calling to them is an excellent alert :)

Rosellas make good use of the water provided, drinking and bathing.


Incoming ...





uh oh ... the camera sound often disturbs the birds at the water, even though quite a distance away.
(in fact, I photograph them from my glorified bird hide ... my little house (from the window over the kitchen sink, in fact))




Their liftoff is impressive when "stopped" by the camera, though too speedy to appreciate in real time.





In reading more about them I was astonished to find that a virus is responsible for the colour variations of the Crimson Rosella
http://theconversation.com/colour-variability-in-crimson-rosellas-is-linked-to-a-virus-31668

More Information for any interested

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosella

The following two links have recordings of the calls.

http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Platycercus-elegans

http://users.esc.net.au/~slp/birds/Adel_Rosella.htm


Finally, those over a certain age will remember the Rosella logo of products long ago ... and South Australians will  know about Fritz and Sauce.

http://www.rosella.com.au/about/

Cheers
j

2017 Already!

*sneaks back in*



It's not only January already, but it's January 2017!

I will pick up where I left off, with the Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos.

The cockatoos are tentative at the bowl, I think because it had fallen off while I was away and they'd been without it for a couple of weeks.

Though the cockatoos are quiet, the magpie isn't ;)