Vik's Gallery:   Turquoise Parrot (3/7)

PSITTACIFORMES: Psittacidae

Neophema pulchella  

I was exploring bushland along Reedy Creek in Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park when I noticed a female Turquoise Parrot sitting on a tree branch only a few metres away.

I took a few photos of her as a passing shower splattered us both with rain drops and she flew to another branch, again not far away. I took a couple more photos and she flew once more, this time out of sight between the trees.

Whilst enjoying such good views of the parrot, I'd noticed that her wing feathers looked exceptionally worn and damaged.

As I walked the short distance to the car it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn't kindred spiritship with me that had caused her not to flee immediately we became aware of each other, nor even our common suffrage of the shower, but that there was perhaps something else that she was concerned about. That something would have to be a nest.

Michael Morcombe's eGuide to Australian Birds states of the Turquoise Parrot: "Typically picks a low hollow in a stump, post, fallen log or lower trunk of a dead tree." There was a stump in the immediate vicinity that fell within that description. A relatively small tree had been chopped down several years ago and had subsequently re-sprouted from the base. I had been standing right next to it when photographing the Turquoise Parrot.

I walked back to the stump. Down the centre of it was a hole perhaps 12 centimetres across. I didn't expect to see anything in the hole but on looking down I could make out half a dozen white eggs about thirty centimetres down.

I took two photos relying on the camera's automated exposure settings and within seconds distanced myself from the stump hoping I hadn't inadvertently caused the nest to be abandoned by the hen. Now I realised that the bird was probably on the nest when I came along and had vacated on hearing me stumbling around close by.

Almost as soon as I turned to look back at the stump, there she was, the Turquoise Parrot, on the top of the stump. She looked around for a few seconds, then looked into the hole, and then she disappeared down inside it. Thank goodness for that.

Now I also understood why her wing feathers were so worn. She must climb or batter her way up out of that deep narrow hole in the stump whenever she is disturbed, which hopefully isn't often, and probably each time the male visits with food for her while she's sitting on the eggs.

It's not easy being Turquoise.