Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS

THE PARROTS

Grass Parakeets

Belonging to the same family group, but much better known, are the pretty little Grass Parakeets (Neophema), the seven species of which are also confined to Australia and Tasmania. The bill is uniform in color, deeper than long, and not notched, while the four central tail-feathers are of about the same length, a character which separates them from a closely allied genus.

The Grass Parakeets are largely terrestrial in their habits, spending much time amongst tangled grasses and reeds, through which they run with celerity, and on the seeds of which they largely subsist. Probably the most abundant and best-known is the Elegant Grass Parakeet (N. elegans) of South and West Australia, where Mr. Gould says it appears to prefer the barren and sandy belts bordering the coast, but occasionally resorts to the more distant interior.”

Flocks were constantly rising before me while traversing the salt marshes; they were feeding upon the seeds of grasses and various other plants which were there abundant; in the middle of the day, or when disturbed, they retreated to the thick banksias that grew on sandy ridges in the immediate neighborhood, and in such numbers that I have seen the trees literally covered with them.”Mr. Gilbert also speaks of finding them in myriads about several pools, there being no other water for many miles around.

This species is about nine inches long and has a bar of deep indigo-blue across the forehead, while the lores are rich yellow, the head, cheeks, back, and shoulders greenish blue, the secondaries blue and the primaries black, and the under parts greenish yellow becoming bright yellow on the abdomen. Another member of the genus is known as the Rock Parakeet (AT. petrophila), being confined to the rocky islets of the coast of Southwest Australia, where it places its four or five eggs in a crevice of a rock or under shelving stones. It is distinguished from the other members by having the lores and a circle surrounding the eyes of a pale verditer-blue instead of yellow or greenish yellow.

 

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