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Vernal hanging parrot
The vernal hanging parrot (or the lorikeet) is a tough bird to see since it’s a small bird which sticks mostly to tree tops. Locating one for my clients is difficult enough. Finding one to photograph is a totally different matter altogether!
But every once in a while the odds are in the photographer’s favor. Post monsoon a bushy plant commonly found at the socorro plateau puts out orange flowers that the lorikeet loves feeding on. I’m not sure if the birds eat the flower or if they simply try to sip the nectar out of them. Whatever may be the case this is the one time the parrots will come down from the trees and perch at heights favorable for a good photograph. It’s a two week window after which the flowers dry up and the birds return to their lofty places.
Rose ringed parakeet
In the early winter of 2013 a bunch of Rose ringed parakeets descended onto a large neem tree just outside my room. A creeper that had been growing all over the neem tree was now drying. And it its last few days of life it put out a strange fruit that the parakeets simply could not resist.
For the next few days the birds were on the creeper almost all day. They would fly off only during the hot hours of the day or when I pulled out my camera to photograph them!
The green birds were astonishingly well camouflaged and at times I struggled to help my parents locate just a single one. When they did finally see the bird it was usually because it was flying away along with three of its buddies in tow!
Only their screeching call occasionally betrayed them which, unfortunately for me, they rarely uttered while they were sitting on the bush.
The birds were hilarious in their attempts to collect and eat the fruit. To eat a fruit a parakeet would first pluck one with its beak and transfer it one of its feet. Then the bird would lift the fruit to its face using a single foot and take a bite out of it while trying to hold itself steady with its other foot!
The birds were exceptionally clumsy in executing this entire operation and much of the fruit landed on the ground even before a single bite had been taken out of it. The parakeets of course couldn’t be bothered with dropping to the ground to pick up the fallen fruit. When a fruit slipped out of a parakeet’s grasp the unfazed bird would simply move on and find another one.
Why bother wasting energy climbing down and risking encounters with cats and other predators when they creeper had laid out a glut of fruit for them!
