Wild Bird Wednesday: Rainbow Lorikeet

The Rainbow Lorikeet is unmistakable with its bright red beak and colourful plumage. Both sexes look alike, with a blue (mauve) head and belly, green wings, tail and back, and an orange/yellow breast. They are often seen in loud and fast-moving flocks, or in communal roosts at dusk.

Rainbow Lorikeets are such colourful parrots that it is hard to mistake them for other species. The related Scaly-breasted Lorikeet is similar in size and shape, but can be distinguished by its all-green head and body.

Last week I shared information and images of the Scaly-breasted Lorikeet (also seen below with the Rainbow Lorikeet).

The Rainbow Lorikeet mostly forages on the flowers of shrubs or trees to harvest nectar and pollen, but also eats fruits, seeds and some insects. The Rainbow Lorikeet appears to have benefited from artificial feeding stations and prolific-fruiting and flowering trees and shrubs.

The Rainbow Lorikeet is found in a wide range of treed habitats including rainforest and woodlands, as well as in well-treed urban areas.

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Embracing Nature: Sunset & the Ocean

"When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?" — Ralph Marston

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. ” — John Muir

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are 1440 minutes in every day... 1440 opportunities to capture a moment of beauty. What moment of beauty did you capture this week?

How do you embrace nature?


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Wild Bird Wednesday: Scaly-breasted Lorikeet

The Scaly-breasted Lorikeet is Australia’s second-largest species of lorikeet, behind the Rainbow Lorikeet. Instead of the Rainbows’ vivid coloration, Scaly-breasted Lorikeets are mostly emerald-green, with yellow scalloping on the front (the ‘scales’) and a coral-pink bill.

Like other lorikeets, they almost exclusively eat nectar which is usually gathered from the flowers eucalypts, banksias, paperbarks and other native trees and shrubs. These lorikeets often associate with other species of nectar-eating birds, especially Rainbow Lorikeets, and they are often seen squabbling noisily with them in the canopy of flowering trees.

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Brisbane City: Colour the World Orange

In November 2015, I was honoured to be involved in raising awareness for International Nerve Pain Awareness Month; also known as "Nervember".

Part of this included an evening planned for some night photography around the city of Brisbane where numerous buildings, including the Story Bridge, were lit up orange for the evening.

Brisbane City Hall decked out in orange.

Treasury Building

The view from Wilson's Outlook

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Wild Bird Wednesday: Crested Tern

The Crested Tern is a seabird in the tern family, native to Australia, that nests in dense colonies on coastlines and islands.
The adults of both sexes are identical in appearance, with grey upperparts, white underparts, a yellow bill, and a shaggy black crest that recedes in winter. Juveniles have a distinctive appearance, with strongly patterned grey, brown and white plumage, and rely on their parents for food for several months after they have fledged. Like all members of the genus Thalasseus, the Crested Tern feeds by plunge diving for fish, usually in marine environments; the male offers fish to the female as part of the courtship ritual.

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