The Crimson Rosella

They are a rather noisy bird, and very good-looking. The impertinent noisy call is easiest to hear while the birds feed on the land in open areas. The Rosella has a clear, high pitched ringing call uttered in flight. People hear the Rosella's soft communicating prattling notes, and a gentle, clear chirp voiced from a roost in a tree.

Some people call The Eastern Rosella a Rosehill parakeet, or Rosy. Birders watch the birds in pairs or flocks in scrub, savannah, woods and even farmland, where it seeks seeds, fruit, berries, nectar, blossoms and insects.

In Australia, the mating season lasts for about four to five months from late August to February. Scientists in New Zealand have not studied the Crimson Rosella's breeding habits.

Interbreeding- When birds of various colors migrate to a different area it is common that these birds interbreed. This is why in some areas you have different colored Rosellas.

Some Rosella pairs will nest alone or in small groups. Most Crimson Rosella's nests are generally a bowl shaped structure, having little depth of rotten wood powder in an empty hole or limb of a tree and even in fence posts. Many birds will enlarge the hole if it isn't big enough. Most birds do little but lay wood chips on the bottom of the hole.

After mating the female lays about five glossless white, oval eggs, and incubates them for about 21 days. Both the male and females sit on the eggs. The new birds are quite bare except for some brownish or grey down. Both parents feed the birds by regurgitating from their crop.

The young fledge after about four or five weeks and generally remain with their parents for several months longer.

INTERESTING FACTS: Their picture has been used for a very long time as the symbol for Rosella tomato sauce (my favorite), otherwise known as Ketchup.

The numbers of this richly colored bird are very low and the range mostly restricted. Should they become common, however, they are likely to become a pest in major fruit growing districts.

Some national stamps have the Crimson Rosella on them. The only economic value of these birds is as a cage animal. Some birders say the Crimson Rosella is easy to TAME. I am of the opinion these birds are still wild animals and are easy to TRAIN.

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