Distribution

Eastern Australia, from Cape York Peninsula southward along the coast to Eyre Peninsula, South Australia; also Kangaroo Island.  It is a rare visitor to Tasmania; there were occasional records from "Tasmanian region" last century.  In 1969, a flock of about 16 birds was recorded on King Island where it remained for several months.  The population in the region of Perth, Western Australia, originated in the late 1960s from escaped captive birds.  Stan Sindel (1987) pointed out how the range of this lorikeet has extended in response to urbanization:  "It has been a common resident of the morthern suburbs of Sydney for many years and more recently has extended its range into the southern and south-western suburbs.  I often see small flocks in the south-western suburbs where five years ago they were unknown.  "By 1995, or before, they were in the very heart of Sydney, for example, at Ashfield, where they visit the balcony of one apartment.

It is found in a multitude of habitats, in fact in any locality where there is sufficient food - in mallee scrub, open eucalyptus forest, rain forest, gardens and parks.  It frequents coconut palms on offshore islands along the Queensland coast.  Found in mountainous areas in Queensland and northern New South Wales, it is otherwise primarily a lowland species which often moves in large flocks, in search of large trees.  Observations of contributors to The Atlas of Australian Birds did not suggest any large scale seasonal movement.

Forshaw (1981) stated:  "In the north, there are some birds present in most districts throughout the year, but in the south, they travel more widely in search of blossoms and at times completely vacate a district.  Movements are usually erratic though are regular and seasonal in some places."

At Swan Vale, northern New South Wales, they regulary cross the Great Dividing Range.  They come from the coast in the east each spring when white box or yellow box trees are in heavy flower. The visiting rainbows used to nest here.  They ceased to do so about 1927 when most big gum trees along Swanbrook Creek were finally killed, depriving them of nest sites.  John Henry Courtney, John Courtney's father, found the last known rainbow nest in this area in 1927 (Courtney pers. comm. 1995).

Rainbow lorikeets are easily attracted in large numbers to artificial food sites.  The most famous of these sites is Currumbin Sanctuary, Palm Beach, Queensland, where twice daily feeding by visitors has been an attraction for many years.  They can hold out plates of bread soaked in honey and enjoy (or otherwise!) the sensation of lorikeets perching on their hands and heads in their eagerness to partake.  The flocks consists mainly of rainbows with a few scaly-breasts - more of the latter at the morning feed and only about 3 percent at 4:00 pm.  Total numbers vary; there were only about 200 on the December day of my visit.  Des Spittall, curator for many years, told me that numbers currently fluctuate between about 50 and 1,200, but formerly as many as 1,400 might come.  Numbers are influenced by abundance of flowering eucalyptus and the presence of predators; on the day I was there a goshawk was in evidence, thus numbers were lower.  The long-term decline in numbers is due to the Gold Coast becoming increasingly developed, and probably also to the fact that more householders put out food to attract lorikeets to their gardens.  there were quite a few young ones (some of which had probably only recently left the nest) and I was told that they had bred early that year.  Usually young are not seen until January.

Most residents of areas where this species is common take it very much for granted.  Yet it must be one of the world's most common birds which is colorful and easily seen; a feeding flock, or one coming in to roost, is a spectacle which would be difficult to surpass.  "Rainbow" denotes colorful but the intense hues of this species are not present in a rainbow.  My own first view of these lorikeets in the wild, along with musks, took place in an Adelaide park on a fine April day.  I was totally spellbound.  It amazed me that local people were walking by without giving the feeding birds as much as a glance!  I was speaking at a convention being held in the nearby university, and it was with great reluctance that I tore myself away from this wonderful scene!  I still find flocks of this subspecies totally mesmerizing from the point of view or color, noise and activity.

The diet of pollen and nectar is varied with seeds, fruits, berries and insects.  Forshaw (1981) states that the staple diet is pollen and nectar from the flowers of Eucalyptus, Angophora, Melaleuca, Banksia and other native and introduced trees and shrubs.  They also feed on fruits of Ficus, mangoes which have been broken open by fruit bats, Casuarina flower heads, beetles and small grubs.  Orchard fruits such as apples and pears are eatenk, causing some damage.  Maize and sorghum crops may also be attacked before they are ripe, as lorikeets like to feed on the milky grains.

Nesting usually occurs from August to January, also at other times in the north of the range.  The most favored nest sites are hollow limbs in Eucalyptus or Melaleuca, generally at the height of about 16 m (50 ft); nests as low as 3 m (10 ft) have been recorded.

According to Courtney, the nest entrance can be a symmetrical round hole in teh side of the trunk of a living river red gum tree (into which they can barely squeeze), or it can be a short dead spout leading into a living limb or trunk.  Both types or nest entrance have been observed by John courtney at Bonshaw, west of the Great Dividing Range, on the NSW/Queensland border.  A clutch of three eggs from Grafton, New south Wales, averaged 27.6 x 23.0 mm (Forshaw 1981).

Plumage

The head is rich blue, almost violet, shaft-streaked with lighter blue; abdomen is deep purple-blue.  Nuchal collar is yellowish green.  the breast is orange, usually without any barring but marked with yellow at the sides to a varying degree; underwing coverts are orange, tinged with yellow.  The key identification features are the blue head, almost unbarred orange breast and yellow-green collar.

More mutations have appeared in this subspecies than in any other lorikeet.  A photograph of a pied appeared in the Magazine of the Parrot Society for April, 1984.  The normally green areas were replaced by vivid yellow except on the thighs and some of the wing coverts.  There was a brief comment by Dr. A. J. Wright that this mutation had appeared in collections in South Africa during the precious 10 years.  He stated it was recessive, delicate and infertile!  Not surprisingly, the mutation was not established.  Sindel (1987) was informed that a cinnamon mutation had been developed in South Africa.  There are now a few in Australia.  The green areas are replaced by greenish yellow; the head is lilac and whitish lilac with some orange streaks.  The underparts are entirely red.  In Australia there is another form which has been called the Dutch cinnamon; all its colors (including those of the soft parts) are paler.  Stan Sindel developed an olive mutation in the rainbow lorikeet by hybridizing it with an olive scaly-breast.  Two interesting mutations in Australia are the blue-breasted, which lacks red and yellow in the plumage, and the blue, which is various shades of blue with white breast and white nuchal collar.

General

Due mainly to its wonderful plumage, this has always been a very popular lorikeet with aviculturists.  Outside Australia, demand probably exceeds supply and females have become harder to find.  (Buyers should note that in the U.K. birds of the nominate race are often advertised as "rainbow lorikeets."  This may happen quite innocently when reference has been made to Parrots of the World, where the name green-naped lorikeet is not used.)  Up until 1961, when Australia ceased to export her fauna, this was one of the few lorikeets which was freely available in Europe.

In Australian aviaries it breeds throughout the year.  Peter Philp, a speaker at the Fifth National Avicultural Convention in Adelaide in 1989, stated that his pair had fledged young in every month except May and September.  They had reared 33 young in ten years.  Australian breeder Barbara O'Brien, who kept every species of Australian lorikeet, commented that her rainbows were the only ones which would eat seed and "only when the have chicks and then only hulled oats."  These were limited to a handful daily.

In Lories and Lorikeets I recorded several instances of aviary birds burrowing into the ground in order to nest.

Hutchins and Lovell (1985) give a description of the display: "The courtship dance of the male rainbow lorikeet is rather acrobatic; he resorts to dancing up and down, then hanging upside down from the perch or hopping along the perch sideways and twisting from side to side.  Often this is done in silence byt at other times loud screeches are uttered and added to these antics a fair amount of bobbing and bowing is done.  During this display the male's eyes dilate, this is very pronounced and very striking to the observer."  It should be noted that both sexes blaze the eyes, arch the neck, hiss and bob in typical Trichoglossus manner.

Literature