This week our attention is drawn to a very colorful bird which many of my followers adore seeing on my blog, the Rainbow Lorikeet, or Rainbows to the locals, a bird we hear daily in small flocks calling to each other in excited raucous communication, feeding from the nectar rich flowers of our Endeavor Bottlebrush tree in our courtyard just outside the back door. This a very old tree and is covered in blooms most of the year. If you want to attract native bird, plant native flowering bushes such as Grevillea, Bottlebrush and Banksia. Thousands of these birds are common and live around the Sydney area and while they are easy to photograph feeding, they are such rapid flyers it is a challenge to get a decent flight shot as can be seen above.
They nest in the hollows of the Angophora costata or Sydney Red Gum, competing with the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, also in great numbers for the same holes. They do nest in eucalypt trees also if they find a hole. I have seen these birds using their strong beaks to chip away at tree holes to make nest with the lady looking on. These two birds and the Noisy Miner make up the most numerous birds around the east coast Sydney region. They guard their nest from attacks of Kookaburras and Butcherbirds that do the rounds when the nest is not guarded. Both are devoted parents, as do other omnivorous birds.
The Noisy Miner is an extremely bold and aggressive native honeyeater which gains control of whole areas and trees by using the ‘pack method’. One or two birds start harassing and physically attacking an intruder to their territory and put out the call for help. Immediately many Noisy Miner will fly directly to the cause, and assist driving the intruder out with continual biting attacks to the unwitting victim. They particularly pick on weaker honeyeaters and pardalotes that also enjoy eating nectar, flowers and lerps. It is the sweet sugary lerps that miners (both Noisy and Bell) relish and harvest. Unlike Miners, Lorikeets and Cockatoo have beaks designed for eating seed, which they extract from seed cones on native Banksia and Casuarina trees.
Each different species of eucalypt has its own different specie of lerp producing psyllid. I have shown in previous posts birds licking lerps from the back of eucalypt leaves. Interesting enough, while Noisy Miners have been seen chasing in flock cats, dogs, massive eagles, large meat eating birds able to eat miners and even humans, they do not bother the Rainbow Lorikeet. It appears there seems to be a sort of agreement between them, as I watch them feeding from the same Bottlebrush, both calling to their mates but both sharing the same flowers in turn without aggression. I have read that Rainbows in flock together also can be quite aggressive to Miners and inflict a more savage wound than the miner due to their much stronger hooked parrot beak.
One of the features I highlight in my book “What Birds Teach Us” about Rainbows is the fact that they mate with one partner for life. It is almost impossible to tell the male from the female except the male may be slightly larger. It is one of the saddest things to observe when one of the pair is dead by the roadside and the other trying to get it moving. They grieve long and deep. So it is you seldom see one bird but two or three (one being a juvenile). You will see them in small flocks moving from tree to tree, though you usually hear their loud chatter before you see them. They often are hidden in the colorful flowers they feed from. I have sold several copies of the first of the next series as a canvas print and have one on the wall at home. See how they preen and care for each other as true devoted lovers.
My wife and I were concerned a couple of months ago when for several weeks we neither saw nor heard a Rainbow. After some thought, and a search in my field guides I realised that they were all nesting at the same time, well away from our home, usually in the Reserves and National Parks around Sydney where the nesting trees are found. Almost at the same time last month they started appearing and their welcome excited feeding frenzy chatter was heard once more. You might remember the juvenile bird I photographed a few weeks ago with its parent as the feature photo in my post The Mindfulness of Birding.
To give you a good Rainbow experience after recent rain (hey! isn’t that when you see after rain, rainbows?) I will share this video of one feeding only a meter or two from me on the back step. They get so into it that they often don’t notice you as long as you remain perfectly still. Listen to the chatter, the continuous communication from one mate to another, each knowing the voice of the other over the other birds. This again is one of the neurological wonders of our Aussie parrot species, their ability to learn language, even human, as those with domesticated Australian Budgies and Cockatoos already know. They can adapt to different flock languages with this ability which may save their lives in difficult climatic and physical threats.
We can learn that faithfulness in relationship is a very important trait. Sharing and caring together is what God intended for man and woman in a loving and trusting relationship. From this may come offspring, harmonizing and concreting that love into tangible expressions, that will hopefully continue to propagate and grow that same love in the generations that follow. The parent, the child’s most influential person, is the primary mentor, exhibiting through their own loving example between parent and parent.
As family counselors teach:
Parents, if you want your child to grow up with healthy self esteem with loving caring affection and a trust worthy obedient spirit, simply and honestly love each other and they will learn from your example and mimic the same, it is not so much what you say that is important, though positive and loving words certainly are, but even more important, is what you do by example in their presence and hearing. The old saying is ‘it is seldom taught, than caught’ or ‘Seldom telt, than felt.‘ (Older English). Children are sponges looking to those who know how to live, so that they to can learn the same, just as birds do. Good parent mentoring coupled to a trusting, obedient child brings blessing to both.
“Grandchildren are like a crown to the elderly, and the glory of children is their parents.” – Proverbs 17:6 (NIV)
“The righteous person behaves in integrity; blessed are his children after him.” – Proverbs 20:7
“In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge.” – Proverbs 14:26
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” – John 13:24
Have a wonderful week! I seem to be slowly on the mend. Thanks for your prayers and well wishes, it is heartening and encouraging that you my dear blogging friends express your concern and care for my health.
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