# Bird ID? Gold Coast



## tooninoz (Oct 10, 2008)

Can anyone ID this bird?







Sorry, but the picture was taken hastily and through flyscreen! My father took it as it sat on the edge of the gutter and drank - it looks to be a fair sized bird.
We've googled 'lorikeet', 'Australian parrot' etc etc and no joy.
It was taken at Currumbin on the GC Queensland.
cheers, toon


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## disasterpiece7.0 (Oct 10, 2008)

I'm not expert, but is it an eastern rosella?


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## Jewly (Oct 10, 2008)

I was going to say Pale Headed Rosella.


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## disasterpiece7.0 (Oct 10, 2008)

Google images says easterns have red heads, pales don't have red, perhaps he's a bit of both? 

think it's safe to say it's a rosella anyway.


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## tooninoz (Oct 10, 2008)

Cheers! Sorry, I did mean rosella, not lorikeet. 
Definitely looks closer to a Pale headed, but...?


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## Jewly (Oct 10, 2008)

Lovely bird whatever it is.


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## mysnakesau (Oct 10, 2008)

It looks like a hybrid between an eastern rosella and either pale headed or Crimson rosella race _platycercus flaveolus_. With pale heads - they have paler blue or white cheek patches, the male has a black head. With the _flaveoulus_ the cheek patches blue with red above the beak (frontal band) similar to the Twenty Eight Parrot. Another race of crimsons are what most would know as the Adelaide Rosella which also look similar to your photo.
This is an Adelaide


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## euphorion (Oct 10, 2008)

pale headed rosella, my fave birds


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## Fuscus (Oct 10, 2008)

Pale-heads and eastern rosellas are considered by some as morphs of the same species, the white-cheeked rosella. What you have there is PROBERLY a hybrid between the two morphs just getting it adult plumage. I've seen this before, once in adult colors, it will look like an eastern

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper1/


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## mysnakesau (Oct 10, 2008)

Oops! Male pale headeds don't have black head. I mistakened them for the Northern Rosella.

Pale Headed..





These pics come from this website
http://www.graemechapman.com.au/cgi-bin/viewphotos.php?c=450


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## hozy6 (Oct 10, 2008)

disasterpiece7.0 said:


> Google images says easterns have red heads, pales don't have red, perhaps he's a bit of both?
> 
> think it's safe to say it's a rosella anyway.


 
well mate technically the red is more on its neck not its head im no expert but id say pale headed Rosella


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## tooninoz (Oct 10, 2008)

Fuscus said:


> Pale-heads and eastern rosellas are considered by some as morphs of the same species, the white-cheeked rosella. What you have there is PROBERLY a hybrid between the two morphs just getting it adult plumage. I've seen this before, once in adult colors, it will look like an eastern
> 
> http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/publications/series/paper1/



Thanks Fuscus - that figures; I just spoke to my father and let him know what the consensus was, and he mentioned that it had a thin band of red around the neck, broken at the back, but it had a fairly large apron of red over it's chest. So what you say makes sense.
Thanks for the help everyone - The APS Encyclopedia works again


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## disasterpiece7.0 (Oct 10, 2008)

hozy6 said:


> well mate technically the red is more on its neck not its head im no expert but id say pale headed Rosella



But if you look the red is on the upper neck, where pale headeds have none. I was simply saying that the presence of red may indicate that it's a hybrid as pictures i found showed pale headeds to have no red.


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