Birdy weirdness

[rattfan]

  I don't have any photos for this one because it happened out of nowhere, a few days ago.  Outside St Marys Cathedral in the city, where I perambulate on my break, but imagine this.  Half-asleep office workers are jolted to sudden alertness as wild screeches break out above and a blast of colour as four rainbow lorikeets fall out of a palm tree, flapping and screaming. [But here are some rainbow lorikeets I prepared earlier, when they visited me at work, three floors up]

photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOu17BreftBmTOEaHfOwW9NHvmMDtKkn3PSY78LHxd-Bx2MFQwjJwoZzhLQQtYtCg/photo/AF1QipNJFN7Os3C67bXis88dR4xqxCUZvmws0nPwafpP

photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOu17BreftBmTOEaHfOwW9NHvmMDtKkn3PSY78LHxd-Bx2MFQwjJwoZzhLQQtYtCg/photo/AF1QipN2wnMjWTvOmOHaW8arh9OL4Rstq3-55Zt9NgLU


They're gorgeous looking little parrots, though not native to Western Australia, but the scream of a rainbow lorikeet can bring tears to the eyes and blast the eardrums.  Four at once can just about paralyse your nervous system.

They fluttered to the ground, two locked in combat, the other two appearing to play a cheerleading role.  I was on one side, another unsuspecting pedestrian on the other.  We exchanged WTF looks.   None of the birds seemed to notice us.  In the end I did move towards the combatants and made a "what's all this then?"  noise to break them up before somebody ended up dead and they did separate at that point.

The wildlife in this immediate area are confident to the point of insanity, but this was extreme even for locals. 

Comments

[minoanmiss]

OMG that's wild. The angry fights I see in the urban wild are usually between inebriated humans, who tend to be much drabber than lorikeets, if slightly less shrieky.

[pameladean]

They look so improbable to an eye accustomed to the brightest thing around being a cardinal or an eastern blue jay.

Dramatic scenes amongst the avian population are most likely to be perpetrated by corvids or icterids, locally. Crows are very good at it, but you can't fault a gray catbird on a good day, either.

P.

[yourlibrarian]

What colorful visitors!

I did move towards the combatants and made a "what's all this then?" noise

I found that as funny as the idea of a hate clash between the lorikeets shocking all the passersby.

[shirebound]

Oh my goodness, what an unusual experience!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Since parrots aren't wild or colonizing here, the note that they are that loud is an evocative detail for this species.

You stopped a dinosaur fight!

[earthspirits]

They're cute - amazing though, that they're so loud, considering their small size.

Glad you broke up their fight!

[leecetheartist]

My goodness, rainbow lorikeets are deafening when they're happy, when they're fighting their calls must pierce eardrums on the ISS!

[rattfan]

I'm sure they did.

You may not remember, but a few years ago I was at the vet with a rat when folk from a bird sanctuary arrived to collect a chick which had been handed in. It was featherless and apart from the size, which only narrowed the field a little, the only identifier was the voice. It shrieked like a banshee, as though it was being handed over to certain death, not to kind people who would not be getting any sleep for the next few weeks! So that nailed it: Rainbow lorikeet chick.

[leecetheartist]

Such a beautiful bird, such a voice of broken glass.

[cesy]

I'm having trouble reading as you seem to have hard-coded black on white - please can you fix it to respect the user's choices like a normal Dreamwidth post?

[rattfan]

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. I've had a look and I don't have anything ticked for "display." The reader, on the other hand, seems to be able to choose how they see posts, but again, I'm not experienced. If you think my posts are so "abnormal," you don't need to read them!

[leecetheartist]

When I'm reading it here on my device, up the top, to the left on the top Dreamwidth bar it gives me the choice of reloading it in My Style which works for me, if that helps?