Parrots and Their Interesting Habits/Parts by the World Parrot Trust
A Duchess Lorikeet acrobatically forages for nectar with its unique brush tongue, twisting this way and that and clinging upside down to branches. A female Vasa Parrot experiences an extraordinary plumage change when coming into breeding condition. And the Kea includes general mayhem in some of its daily habits. And the list goes on: parrots as a group, right from the start, are fascinating creatures, but some species are definitely edgier than others. Some of these beguiling birds have evolved some very interesting behaviours and/or appendages. The Lories: Unique adaptation for special food Lories and lorikeets, from the subfamily Loriinae, have glossy, colourful plumage and elongated bills – but the most interesting part of these birds is their brush‐like tongue, coated on the tip with papillae, or finger‐like projections. Built for specialized feeding on nectar, these handy accessories harvest pollen, nectar and sometimes an insect or two, all the while spreading around valuable genetic material from flower to flower – thereby ensuring future reproduction of these vital plants. And they do this all in the comfort of the warm, tropical regions of the world: lories and lorikeets are confined to an area that © neoporcupine All rights reserved. License: Creative encompasses the eastern Pacific Ocean islands west to Commons 2 Mindanao in the S Philippines and Sunda Islands in Indonesia. The Kakapo: Love is in the air The owlish, quiet‐mannered Kakapo would be an oddity without its ambitious breeding habits: its lack of the power of flight, island isolation and invisibility in the forest it lives in make it a strange one indeed. But this bird does one better: its determination to breed makes it legendary. The Kakapo, being flightless, is of course confined to the ground – but it makes the most of it. The male Kakapo, once old enough to breed, builds an epic arena from which to declare its availability to the opposite sex. Each male has an approximately 50‐hectare domain in which it maintains up to ten conspicuous bowl‐like excavations. It is in these bowls that it proclaims its readiness to available females – by emitting loud (there aren’t many of these guys left, so they have to be VERY loud) booming calls, beginning at dusk every night, on and on, for about three months. Once a female presents herself the male proceeds with all haste to do the deed (again, there aren’t many of them – especially females) thereby preserving his seed. A very important endeavour for a species in which the total world population numbers 120.