garden
Nov 3, 2011
Julie
3 Comments

A new friend in our garden: rainbow lorikeet

I have a post half-written about how the Occupy Wall Street movement relates to environmentalism, but I’m on holidays right now and I wanted to show you something more fun.

This little fella decided he liked the look of our garden recently. He’s a rainbow lorikeet, which means he’s not native to WA. The population here came from aviary releases, according to Birds in Backyards. The other birds here don’t seem to mind – maybe because lorikeets eat nectar and the other native and introduced birds near us are all about the insects.

He’s got a cheerful little chirp and loves our bottlebrushes and grevilleas. I think he must have been tame, if not an actual pet, because he landed on my father-in-law’s head and was happy to run up and down his arm. He didn’t mind the noise of the guys loading up a trailer full of building rubble either, while the other birds kept their distance.

The funniest part was when I brought out a bread bag with a couple of crusts in it to see if he’d eat them (we didn’t know then they prefer nectar) – he perked up and ran right towards the bag making lots of chirping noises! I guess he knows that bread bags mean it’s lunchtime :)

We’ve given him some fruit now – apple and strawberries. Not that he needs it, with our driveway-length of bottlebrushes and 3 grevilleas, and some unknown orange-flowered thing that he seems to like too. It’s just that Dave can’t bear to have an animal so close and not provide it with food, water and pats on the head!

Update!

It turns out that lorikeets are considered a pest in WA. We only found this out after a bit of an adventure though.

About 5 minutes after I finished posting what’s above, we could hear our little guy squawking madly in our neighbour’s yard. Dave looked over the fence and her dog was having a go at the lorikeet. Dave jumped the fence and rescued him, but he seemed to be a bit injured in the foot. We rang the Wildcare line, which is run by the state government to put people who find injured wildlife in touch with vets or rehab places that can help them.

We ended up at Kanyana Wildlife centre, where a lovely volunteer took our feathered friend and told us what happens next. Because lorikeets are a pest here, they can’t be released back into the wild. However, there’s a lady who takes them in, and keeps an eye on the newspaper ads to see if anyone’s lost one so she can return them. We’re going to call back in a day or two to find out how the little fella is doing.

3 Comments

  • Linda Woodrow November 3, 2011 at 10:48 am

    Hi Julie, they’re native here, and frequent visitors. http://witcheskitchen.com.au/lorikeets/

  • Julie November 3, 2011 at 1:21 pm

    Oooh, lucky you! They’re so pretty, and quite friendly. I’ve had to update my post though, because it turns out lorikeets are a pest here and shouldn’t be allowed out in the wild!

    Luckily someone is going to take our friend in and give him a good home, since it’s ok to have them as pets.

  • wilma November 30, 2011 at 10:46 am

    We have heaps of those in our garden, front and back. And I don’t like them too much as they chased away all other birds from our garden, they are very dominant and often in groups or in pairs. Even the ravens loose the battle in the pond in front of our house. Poor wattle birds are attacked. And now the fruit in the mulberrie tree is starting to ripen the whole tree is covered in lorikeets trashing the unripe fruit. And they don’t let themselves be chased away. Just looking at you as if they are king in the tree. Putting the hose on them even makes them happy. How can I save some mulberries to eat myself? As they don’t stick to the top branches… I concider them a real pest! We used to have ringnecks coming to our garden in the first year, haven’t seen them for at least five years! Lorikeets took their territory.