#musk lorikeets

[redrcs]

Musk Lorikeets, Hampton

On my travels

[splatterscrawl]

sat in the winter sunshine in the park and realised that the weird-sounding lorikeets I've been hearing are actually musk lorikeets

[mk-photographer]

Musk Lorikeets

Bexley, NSW June 2023

[heliosandsonchariotco]

I’ve decided I may as well post some animal photos. My blog my rules, right? I’ll tag my photos as #creature tag.

I saw some musk lorikeets the other day. They’re smaller than rainbow lorikeets but they hang out together in the same flock. They’re mostly green, with red on their cheeks and across their eyes and a blue cap. Their tails are shorter than a rainbow lorikeet’s too.

I also got a photo of the chicks! I saw some parents flying in and out of the hollow a few weeks ago. When I checked again, this pair of scrumpled chicks were peeking out.

[cryptidresurrectionist]

musk lorikeet

[herpsandbirds]

Musk Lorikeets (Glossopsitta concinna), feeding on grasstree flowers, family Psittaculidae, order Psittaciformes, East Gippsland, VIC, Australia

photograph by Adam Blyth

[shalegas34]

This is an ask for you!

And an actual question: top 5 birds?

hello! yay a bird question :D

i’ll start at the bottom:

5. red-capped robin

look at this thing! it’s so cute. it’s got a little red hat! plus i travelled a hundred k’s on corrugated dirt road in a 2WD to get this shot for five likes on instagram, so i’m wheeling it back out for some more airtime lol

4. spotted pardalote

another precious baby! i love small, colourful birds that go cheep. this one is even tinier than most, measuring in at 8-10cm

3. superb fairy wren

sure, he’s basic, but he’s an icon. just wait til you get to my number 1 lol

2. musk lorikeet

who wouldn’t wanna give those puffy cheeks a squeeze… 😍 musks have a higher pitched, more saccharine call than rainbow lories so you can always tell when they’re around. they were my happy bird as a kid

and, coming in at number 1 to absolutely nobody’s surprise…

crested pigeon

mohawk pigeon. woo-woo. i’m yet to conquer the crested pigeon in its iconic mating dance with my camera, but one day…

note: these are all my photos! the quality is shit because i screenshotted them from my instagram

[soup-mother]

lovely flock of musk lorikeets in the neighbours apple tree :) very cute little birds.

i continue to be terrible at wildlife photography but i had a nice view through my binoculars

[iamonlyhereforthefood]

This is cute on its own, but you know what was my first thought, right?

After struggling to bond with members of their own flock, a matte black cockatoo and bright green lorikeet have become unexpected friends.

Greg Iron, director of Bonorong wildlife sanctuary in Tasmania, described their relationship as being “love at first sight” for Raphael, a musk lorikeet who was previously kept without a permit.

“He’s just obsessed,” he said, adding that George – the much bigger red-tailed black cockatoo – was “probably a bit bewildered” at first.

“The second Raphael was in the enclosure … it was like ‘you’re the one’,” he said.

It didn’t take long for the relationship to be reciprocated, with the pair spending, at most, five minutes apart.

“Ninety per cent of the time they’re very close to each other … quite often Raphael will be tucked under George’s wing, particularly when it’s cold … like a mother chicken with its young.

“I always have to stop and look at them when they’re snuggled up together because they’re just so happy.”

Iron said staff were initially wary of potential aggression due to the difference in the birds’ sizes, but there’s been nothing but affection between the two.

Iron said the relationship between the birds was “unique”, as different species tended to be ambivalent about each other. The pair hadn’t formed meaningful relationships with the other animals, he said, and George had interacted less with the female red-tailed black cockatoo than he did with Raphael.

“We wouldn’t separate them now,” Iron said.

“George is probably the best-looking boyfriend in all of Bonorong. The other [musk cockatoos] must be a bit jealous.”

Iron said that while he had “no idea” why their relationship was so strong, the two were probably “entertainment for each other”. Birds were social animals and being removed from the care of their past owners was probably traumatic, he said.

Both Raphael and George experienced difficulties bonding with musk lorikeets and red-tailed black cockatoos. Raphael was separated from other lorikeets due to squabbling.

“George had only really connected with people … I think he thought he was a person.”

Iron said the pair had generated “lots of questions” among visitors, who were often surprised to see Raphael emerge from under George’s wings.

“I think people get a bit of a fright … there’s this moment of complete inability to process what’s going on … this tiny little bright green thing is suddenly popping out against this beautiful matte black.”

[anonsally]

Days 3-5 of Australia vacation: Hobart

On Day 3, we got up early and discovered (to my utter amazement) that showing up at the airport just over an hour before departure for a domestic flight in Australia left ample time for shopping in the terminal even after we had some difficulty with self-checking our luggage.

I enjoyed having free wifi and snacks on the short flight, too, and I loved the view out the window during the descent. Tasmania is gorgeous from above!

We landed in Hobart mid-morning. The airport was a bit of a zoo, but we eventually set out in a giant rental car (to fit the four of us and all our luggage).

The vacation rental was a fairly spacious apartment with inadequate towels and pillows as well as bathrooms that were in desperate need of being redone.

We left our luggage and then drove into town, where we ate lunch sitting outside at a cafe. Despite the urban surroundings, I spotted a bird on a wire and, after looking at it in my binoculars, ascertained that it was a Green Rosella. Not only was this a new bird for me, but it's endemic to Tasmania--it can't be seen anywhere else! So that was an auspicious start to my Tasmanian birdwatching.

Brother-In-Law gave me a ride partway up the mountain on the edge of town (kunanyi/Mt. Wellington) to the trailhead for Fern Glade Track; then he went back to town to hang out with Wife and Sister-In-Law. I had a really nice little hike. I was on the trail for nearly 3 hours, but only went a little over 2 miles. My stated goal was to find a pink robin, but I despaired of that fairly soon as I wasn't familiar with any of the local birds yet and didn't even really know where to look, just that this was the right sort of habitat. I had studied their song and at one point thought perhaps I heard one, but I couldn't locate it. Still, it was a nice hike, and I spotted wallabies a couple of times. I also did see a few birds: a yellow wattlebird, several Tasmanian scrubwrens, a black currawong (which makes a hilarious and distinctive sound), a (probable) scrubtit, and a (probable) Tasmanian thornbill--all of which are endemic! And I heard forest ravens but didn't spot them. Actually, I heard a lot of birdsong but couldn't find the birds, and was extremely disappointed to discover that Merlin's sound ID function doesn't work in Australia.

I rushed back to the road in time to catch the once-per-hour bus back to town. I did not have the correct change for the fare, but the driver just let me ride anyway. Phew.

I met the others at a restaurant on the water and we had drinks and dinner there.

On Day 4, Wife and I had slept really poorly and were too tired to go through with the original plan, so my in-laws went wine tasting and then visited Port Arthur without us. Wife and I took a little walk along the water and saw some sea anemones. And later, I did manage to do a very productive 2-mile, 2.5-hour bird walk around the beach and park near the flat. I spotted lots of new birds: some masked lapwings with their adorable fledglings, a little wattlebird, musk lorikeets, eastern rosellas, sulphur-crested cockatoos (some of which were playing acrobatically in the wind, including flipping upside down), a long-billed corella, galahs, a black-faced cormorant, kelp gulls (Tasmania only has 3 kinds of gull and they're sufficiently different that I was able to identify all of them), and --less excitingly-- some Eurasian blackbirds.

Eventually we all went for a delicious dinner together at an Asian fusion restaurant, and then went to an ice cream boat (Van Diemens Land Creamery) for dessert. We stood under an awning to eat our ice creams in the rain.

On Day 5, we visited the Salamanca Markets in the morning. It was very crowded (Hobart was busy because it was high tourist season in general (holidays, summer) and because the Sydney-Hobart yacht race was going on or possibly ending), but there were some interesting things for sale and also some fun food. I enjoyed a fried potato helix on a stick, which Brother-In-Law informed me was very standard outdoor festival food!

Then we drove to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art. This is... a very weird museum. The very eccentric owner David Walsh (a mathematician who used his skills to win a lot of money at casinos?) had it built to show his private art collection. We were there for several hours and didn't see all of it, but there was a lot of interesting stuff and the architecture was also good. It's mostly underground. There was a huge exhibition of works by Tomás Saraceno, an artist whose work I've seen some of before. These included a few about air pollution, of which I liked "We Do Not All Breathe The Same Air" best, and an installation called "A Thermodynamic Imaginary" which was astronomy-inspired. In the permanent collection, my favorite was perhaps "Kryptos" by Brigita Ozolins.

There was also a piece called "4PM" by Dean Stevenson, which was a performance; he's a composer and every day he has to compose something because a quartet is going to perform at 4pm whatever he wrote that day. It might be short, but it has to be something!

We were pretty exhausted after that. We had seen Tasmanian nativehens (another endemic!) in the adjacent vineyards when we arrived, and saw them again when we left. We went back home to have some downtime (and a cocktail) before returning to MONA for an outdoor music festival for New Year's Eve. That was pretty fun. We were lucky that it was unusually warm that day and evening. The music was mixed--my favorite band was actually the punk band (Liquid Nails?) that played around midnight--but the setting was nice. It was not too crowded yet also felt like we were out doing something for New Year's Eve, which I don't often do. We ate, had a few drinks, admired the stars, lounged about, explored a little. There was a playground, and I found that swinging on a swing while tipsy was very fun. But there's no denying that it felt really weird to be out so late!

[ath3nasgard3n]

vero amore

6/9/22

6:38pm

carve me into the city, the one of concrete, lights and green

i promise to be permanent.

i want to be whimsical, i want the timpani to thrum and for my heart to swell

apollo returns; we are ready. he takes my nimble hand in his own, coated in an archer's glove.

my world turns dusty blue beautiful. the trees speak with native tongues. i turn my head, he is plum and pretty night skies.

he smiles, and for once i feel no discomfort. my skin is darling crimson and i look into his earth and smile back.

the storm parts, and as a gift she leaves lorikeets and sweet jasmine behind her.

the cornucopia is plentiful and the lambs frolick in a dionysiac field

apollo squeezes my hand; as if i would ever let go.

my love, the playful ram in the meadows, the rings wrapped around my saturn

walk me out of the ocean and bring me to the floor of the pine forest

allow me to engulf the earth & the musk of what can be only known as man

i want to be swallowed by the brooding willow

i yearn for the arien pheromones, for the feeling of your stubble against my everything

take me gaia; i have wanted you for too long.

[redrcs]

Pretty little things

Musk Lorikeets, Hampton

(On my travels)

[mustbealoosewire]

D'aw...

[petnews2day]

Is the musk lorikeet Australia’s best-smelling bird?

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/wjNbc

Is the musk lorikeet Australia’s best-smelling bird?

Home Blogs Creatura Blog Is the musk lorikeet Australia’s best-smelling bird? Contributor Bec Crew Contributor Bec Crew Bec Crew is a Sydney-based science communicator with a love for weird and wonderful animals. From strange behaviours and special adaptations to newly discovered species and the researchers who find them, her topics celebrate how alien yet relatable […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/wjNbc #BirdNews