Birding in Karoo National Park
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During our time of living in Pretoria in South Africa, we occasionally made
trips to Cape Town and the surrounding regions. As none of us enjoyed
overly lo...
4 hours ago
15 comments:
Speechless I am !
brilliant! :D I love parrots! We get a few on our garden birdfeed spot! :D
Great photo. I have a soft spot for parrots :)
"Kissing? I wasn't kissing nobody! I was saving her life... see, she's all blue in the lips"
Great shot, Amila. With this, I guess we can say your no-birding photo days are officially over?
Love birds in the wild? Parrots of all kinds are so beautifully colored and such intelligent birds. Happy WW
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Hi Santhoshi,
"The breeding season lasts from November till June, or even later. Courtship is a remarkable performance; the male, dapper in his breeding plumage, struts, with a most pompous, aldermanic air, along a perch towards his love. Then he feeds her (by regurgitation), between whiles drawing himself up to his full height and repeatedly raising one foot as high as it can reach, in a kind of 'sergeant-major salute'. This perfromance goes on for several minutes at a time, and gives an impression of most ardent passion combined with gentlemanly decorum." - George Morrison Henry, about Rose-ringed Parakeet in "A Guide to the Birds of Ceylon", first published in 1955.
This is exactly what I saw today.
Henry rocks!
Hi Chavie,
Try to see next time whether you can observe their courtship behaviour described above. It is quite interesting.
Hi Catsynth,
Me too!
Hi Sunita,
Hahaha...those would be his words!
Don't you worry, I will share the odd non-birding pics in due course!
Hi SK,
They are Parakeets.
Happy WW to you too!
Hi Dee,
Hahaha....thanks for preserving the wordlessness of this day!
great shot Amila. I noticed that the white's in the eye of the rose ringed parakeet which i photographed were not visible. Any reason for this? I didn't realise that the size of the pupils change.
!!!!!!!
Lovely indeed. Great shot. Happy WW
A friend of mine had one of these, beautiful creatures!!!
LOVEly!
Hi Dev,
Just before the two birds connected, their pupil size was pretty normal, and I could see less of the white coloured iris. But as they came close the pupils retracted showing more of the white coloured iris in both birds. I think it may be to see each other better (in the act of mouth- to-mouth courtship feeding) with their detracted pupils reducing the depth of field of their vision, thereby giving them acute visibility at close quarters.
Interestingly, I was able to walk nearer to them quite easily while they were busy smooching, and it was probably due to the lack of depth of field in their vision during 'smooching' (okay, my field craft helped too!)
I must also note that there is a behaviour called 'eye pinning' done by parakeets: which is when a parakeet's pupil will expand and then retract repeatedly. This is shown when the bird is excited. It can show this when it sees a favorite thing, or a person, or when is about to bite (ringers and people who rear parakeets will know this).
Therefore, one cannot rule out 'excitement' too causing this in this change. Afterall, they are engaged in an exciting behaviour.
Talking of your parakeet, the white is not visible probably because it may have not been too excited.
Thank you all, rainfield, Auntie E, Carla and Tabib!
Me too wordless! :)
That was the idea, K!
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