Parrots Above and Parrots Below

Under the category of things that took me by surprise in Australia, you can add the plethora of Parrots! I knew there would be all manner of Parrot fish out on the Reef, and so there were, in more color combinations than I could keep track of.

I also knew there were parrots in Australia. The Field Guide to the Birds has 6 pages of parrots, 2 of Lorikeets (a smaller member of the parrot family) and 2 more of cockatoos so that should have been a clue that parrots weren’t a rarity. I just never expected to see them by the 1,000’s and smack dab in the middle of the town.

As it would turn out, every major city we visited had parrots as thick as thieves. Again, on the very first night in Cairns, along with the bats that were winging their way to the town at sunset, flocks and flocks of parrots came squawking and wheeling their way into the trees that lined the main street.
That I wasn’t run over, as I stood transfixed under the trees straining to see which ones had red cheeks, which ones had blue tails, etc., was a minor miracle. Just like the bats, the stunning thing was the immense number of them. By nightfall, the trees that line the main area of downtown Cairns were completely covered with what I think were Little Lorikeets and Crimson Rosellas.



Remember that I was with my daughters here, and to go to town to have dinner each night with a pair of binoculars around my neck was considered unacceptable. So strained looks behind thick vegetation made correct identification a little tricky. But, no worries, it was spectacular no matter what exact kind they were. And the noise! Deafening. So much screeching and chasing of one another with flocks alighting on branches claimed by others only to be chased away and resettle somewhere else. The cacophony in the trees was echoed by the cacophony on the street with music flowing out of the bars. I just kept thinking, if you can fly, and have the rainforest right outside the city limits, why would you choose the heart of downtown to spend your evenings? Perhaps a city lined with fig and all manner of blossoming trees is the answer. Plus they squawked half the night themselves, so maybe peace and quiet isn’t what they were after. Either way, chock it up to another “WOW me” experience in Australia.

And it wasn’t only in Cairns, which is near the rainforest, but in Sydney, same thing, parrots squawking outside our less-than-classy hostel in a less-than-classy part of town. Also along the Coast road in Victoria at a hostel in Lorne, and later in a trailer park further along the coast, we had trees festooned with Sulfur Crested Cockatoos.
It was really so remarkable. I suppose it just goes to show how little I really researched about the birds before we went. Totally commonplace to those in the know, but, as for moi, I kept an expression of, as an Aussie would say, “a stunned mullet” for most of my trip! A happily stunned mullet! But you gentle reader have been forewarned. Should you go, expect parrots, by the bazillions!