Crimson Rosella - Platycercus elegans

 Crimson Rosella

[Device used: Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-70; Lake Entrance, Victoria, Australia / 2019]

The crimson rosella is native to eastern and southeastern Australia, where it inhabits open forests, woodlands, gardens as well as parks. Its wild diet consists many of native grass seeds, herbs, fruits and flowering buds. [1]

Crimson Rosellas are not only red, but can be yellow or orange. Yellow and red birds produce orange offspring.

There are several colour forms of the Crimson Rosella. The form it is named for has mostly crimson (red) plumage and bright blue cheeks. The feathers of the back and wing coverts are black broadly edged with red. The flight feathers of the wings have broad blue edges and the tail is blue above and pale blue below and on the outer feathers. Birds from northern Queensland are generally smaller and darker than southern birds. The 'Yellow Rosella' has the crimson areas replaced with light yellow and the tail more greenish. The 'Adelaide Rosella' is intermediate in colour, ranging from yellow with a reddish wash to dark orange. Otherwise, all the forms are similar in pattern. Young Crimson Rosellas have the characteristic blue cheeks, but the remainder of the body plumage is green-olive to yellowish olive (occasionally red in some areas). The young bird gradually attains the adult plumage over a period of 15 months.

Throughout its range, the Crimson Rosella is commonly associated with tall eucalypt and wetter forests.

Distribution

There are several populations of the Crimson Rosella. Red (crimson) birds occur in northern Queensland, in southern Queensland to south-eastern South Australia and on Kangaroo Island. Orange birds are restricted to the Flinders Ranges region of South Australia, while yellow ones are found along the Murray, Murrumbidgee and neighbouring rivers (where yellow birds meet red birds they hybridise, producing orange offspring). Red birds have been introduced to Norfolk Island and New Zealand. [2]

Feeding and Diet

Crimson Rosellas are mainly seed and fruit eaters. They forage on the ground and in the outer foliage of trees, picking up seed ready to eat or breaking into fruit holding it in the left foot. Early in the morning they fly out to drink and feed in shrubs and trees or on the ground.

When on the ground in sunlight they keep to shaded patches. Eucalyptus seeds are a diet staple but they take a wide range of grains from weeds, grasses and shrubs. They harvest lerps from leaves and have raided eucalyptus flowers for nectar. Crimson rosellas are often regarded as pests by orchardists and householders.

Lives in humid forests of the east coast and Victoria, in rainforests, tall, dense, wet eucalypt forests, along timbered watercourses and farmland near forests. Flies rapidly twisting and turning between tree trunks and limbs. Abundant in forests and in suburbs of cities

They rest quietly in tree tops during the middle of the day, occasionally nibbling on leaves and socialising in small chattering groups. They feed again in the late afternoon then fly to their roosts. [3]