It's a parrot

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David
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It's a parrot

Okay guys, southeast Queensland. Three identical parrots. All green head moving to almost turquoise wings. Bright but pale yellow on breast moving to orange on one bird. Buff to creamy rump with a rosella type red patch on back under the folded wings. Small black bill (can't see the feet in the grass) longish tail. I thought them to be the same size as rosellas but paleheaded rosella began feeding next to one and the rosella was noticeably larger. Wing tips are dark and the head seems to have a speckled pattern but fully bluish green. My guess was and still is a rosella but the small black bill would suggest otherwise. Any ideas?

Andy
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Not sure how south-east you are, but perhaps it was a red rumped parrot? It has the red patch on its lower back (rump)between its wings, and my bird book (Flegg & Madge, 1995)shows a black beak. The distribution map suggests that it is found in the most south-east part of Qld. It usually feeds on the ground. The picture looks identical to what you describe.

I've never seen one; would love to, though!

Andy.

Andy
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Also, they have a long tail and are a few cm smaller than a pale-headed rosella.

Andy.

onesimus
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The description is similar to a red rumped parrot. They are quite a bit smaller than a rosella.

I have a (poor) photo on my blog:
http://onefile2.blogspot.com/2008/10/close-encounters-of-bird-kind.html

onesimus
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Please note, the photo mentioned on my blog is about the third photo down the page.

David
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I got a couple of (bad) photos this morning. It seems the autofocus lens is acting up. All I have to do now is try to get them into this message
Now I shall go and look up redrump parrots. Thanks people.
David

David
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Well, obviously, that didn't work. I had better go back and read the syntax pages again. If someone else knows how to make it work, I would appreciate it.
David

David
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Well done, Onesimus, your photo is better than mine and that is the bird. A redrumped parrot. Two are mostly yellow on the underparts and the one is quite orangy so I am guessing either male and females or juveniles.
David

soakes
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David, you need to remove the slash from the first img label:

- soakes

soakes
Olinda, Victoria, Australia

Anonymous

Hi David,

Here is a picture of a red-rumped parrot weekend before last at Milang, Lake Alexandrina, SA, Lower Lakes of the Murray River. It looks like he was having some afternoon shut-eye in the sun. There were two of them. By the way, the level of the lake is so low that grass is growing for fifty metres below the low tide mark . There were cars parked where once there were boats moored. Bit of a worry.
I hope that works,
sunju

Anonymous

oops,
a bit big, and a bit skewiff, but you get the idea
sunju

David
David's picture

Thanks, Everyone
There is no doubt these three new arrivals are red-rumped parrots. The only thing left now is to figure out what they are doing so far out of their range, about an hour's drive north of Kingaroy. The aviary escapee theory is valid but there are three birds so it would have to have been a mass prison break. The other thing that puzzles me is that this is cattle country with very little, if any, old growth forest. There are vast numbers of lorikeets (those flying rainbow rats), dozens of galahs, a dozen paleheaded rosellas, three mated pairs of red-winged parrots, a few king parrots and now these red-rumped visitors all coming to visit this tiny park not much larger than a house block on a daily basis. They all nest in tree hollows, so where are they finding them in all of this spindly gum, wattle and hakea scrub?
David

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