Unusual markings on a King Parrot
Submitted: Monday, May 26, 2025 at 11:38
ThreadID: 150465
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mepvic
Hi all. Posted the following in Birds of Australia under Australia's Native Wildlife, in the
Australianaarticles but have not had any reply as yet. Was a bit hard to navigate through to the comments and reviews and I'm wondering if not many people go there.
Thought I would try the
forum as it has a fairly large following.
We live Eltham, one of
Melbourne’s leafy suburbs. Lots of Kooka’s, Lorikeets and King Parrots. Today we had 3 King Parrots on a bird bath and one had distinctive yellow fleck on its back. Never seen that before and nothing in our bird book. Anyone seen something similar? It is not simply sunlight.

Unusual markings on a King Parrot
Reply By: Peter_n_Margaret - Monday, May 26, 2025 at 13:20
Monday, May 26, 2025 at 13:20
Strange things happen sometimes.
No help for your bird, but we had this pair as regular visitors at our
home for several years.

Birds
The female on the right is clearly an
Adelaide Rosella which frequent the area. Males and females are typically almost identical. The one the left was listed in one edition of a bird book we had, as a seperate local variant, but then disappeared in subsequent editions.
Adelaide Rosellas are closely related to the Crimson Rosella found in the Eastern States.
Our pair occupied a breeding box every year for several years but never produced any
young.
Then the male died for some unknown reason and we found the body and took it to the bird section of the
Adelaide Museum.
They identified it as a cross between an
Adelaide Rosella and an Eastern Rosella. The crosses are always sterile.
Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome
AnswerID:
648006
Reply By: mepvic - Monday, May 26, 2025 at 13:38
Monday, May 26, 2025 at 13:38
Thanks gents. Interesting comments. Searched our books again but immature males shown as not having the red on the head
Checked Mrs Google and via Birds in the Bush comments refer to slight colour mutations. Bird seemed to be fully grown. Another comment referred to a family of four with similar colouring and definitely more aggressive to other Kings. Ours was with another 3 with normal markings and seemed to be fitting in ok.
Another site said it could have been a disease that was quite contagious .
Will keep a watch out for others
AnswerID:
648007