Category Archives: Rosella
Crimson Rosella looking gorgeous
This stunning Crimson Rosella was browsing on the seeds of a gum tree late one afternoon. We were at the Macquarie Woods Forestry Reserve Campground, to the west of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. These parrots are quite common in eastern Australia. Even so, their beauty is always amazing.
This bird is a male, with his purple and crimson colouring. The females have more green on their bodies and wings, like the one I saw a few months ago in Whitfield, Victoria.
Common name: Crimson Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus elegans elegans
Approximate length: 35 cm
Date spotted: 16 May 2025 (autumn)
Location: Macquarie Woods Forestry Reserve Campground, Vittoria, NSW, Australia: 33°24’29.0″S 149°18’41.8″E
Beautiful female Crimson Rosella
In my recent travels in the Victorian High Country, I came across a gorgeous female Crimson Rosella. She was a little coy. It was great to see her looking so colourful and smart, as the females often look a little dowdy in comparison to the males.
It was interesting to see the greyish colour around her eye, where my bird book shows a continuation of the yellow-green of the head and back.
The next morning, I saw another female which might or might not have been the same bird. An early morning stretch shows off her gorgeous plumage:
Nibbling a bit of breakfast:
Common name: Crimson Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus elegans elegans
Approximate length: 35 cm
Date spotted: 17-18 February 2025 (summer)
Location: Whitfield, Victoria, Australia: 36°45’43.2″S 146°24’53.4″E
Bird on a wire – Eastern Rosella
Eastern Rosellas are medium-sized parrots, found on the east coast of Australia. We’re lucky enough to be visited regularly by a pair of them. I don’t know if it’s the same two birds each time, or if our phone line is somehow part of the flight lines for a family of birds.
In this video, the male Eastern Rosella struts along a phone line, spiffy in his breeding colours. Alas, the background sound is noisy, but you can just hear the bird chirping as he does his little hello dance:
The next picture is somewhat whimsical. It’s what my camera made up when the bird flew off. I love the colours and motion in this picture, even if the bird’s head is off camera:
The female glowed in the sunlight:
The male’s colours are brighter, with the divisions between the coloured sections more clearly defined. Deep blue and black scallops outline the wings, while the rest of the bird is yellow and black, and red and white:
He knows he’s gorgeous!
Common name: Eastern Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus eximius
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 28 October 2024 (spring)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
Pale-headed Rosella, my first
I recently paid a visit to Brisbane and stayed in an Airbnb with a gorgeous garden. Every morning, as the sun came up, birds visited the flowering Grevilleas outside our window. One morning, this beautiful bird was among them:
It’s my first sighting of a Pale-headed Rosella. They’re not found in the Sydney area, but are common further north in NSW and Queensland. I love the soft colours and gentle manner of this bird.
Common name: Pale-headed Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus adscitus
Approximate length: 28-32 cm
Date spotted: 6 July 2024 (winter)
Location: The Gap, Brisbane, Queensland (approximate map reference)
So lucky! King Parrots and Eastern Rosellas come to visit
Two days ago, a couple of Eastern Rosellas dropped by. The next day, I was getting ready to write this blog post when two King Parrots came visiting. We’re so lucky, to have such beautiful birds in the area.
Eastern Rosellas
It’s quite odd: we have visits from two of these little parrots at around this time every year. The pattern is always the same: I hear them twittering, and lean out of the window. A male perches on our telephone line, or on a branch near by, and gives a little show for his lady friend. The show consists of some twittering, and bit of feather fluffing and scratching, and some wing shuffling. Then, after a few minutes they fly away.
Eastern Rosellas are medium-sized parrots, measuring about 30cm from head to tail. This is the male:
Here he’s in the middle of a wing shuffle:
The female looks on:
Common name: Eastern Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus eximius
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 19 February 2024 (summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
King Parrots
Sitting in the lounge the next afternoon, I heard a soft thunk and then an inquisitive chirp from the veranda. A female King Parrot perched on the window sill, looking in to see what was happening:
The male sat on a branch close by, keeping watch:
At 44cm from head to tail, King Parrots are quite a bit larger than the Eastern Rosellas (30cm). The birds stayed for around 15 minutes. Of course, I talked to them, as you do. The female let me get within a couple of metres.
She was quite happy to turn her back on me and check out the goings on outside:
At the start of this video, the female perches on the window sill, peering in. I then find the male outside the window. The view judders a bit, as I need to kneel down to get the male in view. A cockatoo squawks as it flies past:
In the next video, the female is perched on the window sill looking outwards. If you turn up the volume, you’ll hear her soft chirps at around 6 to 12 seconds into the video. Then I manoeuvred carefully around some obstacles on the veranda, and moved the camera to outside the window. Now you can see the female’s head peering out at the bottom of the view, and the male perched on a branch higher up (and also reflected in the window pane). An Australian Raven wails. The camera pans out to show the view.
It felt like a huge privilege to be able to chat to these quiet, majestic birds.
Eventually, the female flew out onto a branch:
Both birds stuck around for a while. Maybe they were enjoying the view! Then they swooped away to grace another house or tree.
Common name: Australian King Parrot
Scientific name: Alisterus scapularis
Approximate length: 44 cm
Date spotted: 20 February 2024 (summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, New South Wales, Australia
Juvenile Crimson Rosella in Hazelgrove, NSW
A group of four young Crimson Rosellas gathered around a cabin that I was staying in this weekend, in the region of Hazelgrove. That’s west of the Blue Mountains, about three hours’ drive from Sydney.
At first, it was difficult to identify the birds. Other Crimson Rosellas that I’ve seen are red and blue, like the one in my earlier post. After some research, I discovered that the juvenile birds are mostly green instead of red, though they do have the characteristic red and blue markings on their heads.
Here are two of the birds that I saw this weekend:
They were posing nicely on a rusty shed roof, for maximum warmth of colour!
Common name: Crimson Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus elegans elegans
Approximate length: 35 cm
Date spotted: 15 April 2023 (autumn)
Approximate location: Hazelgrove, New South Wales, Australia (map)
Eastern Rosella a frequent visitor
How lucky am I? This gorgeous bird has taken to dropping by frequently, and hanging out on our telephone line. It’s a male Eastern Rosella. Often the female comes along too, but she’s more shy and flies off when I appear.
Eastern Rosellas are medium-sized parrots, at about 30cm from head to tail. This one usually makes his presence known with a distinctive twittering call. The phone line is below the level of my lounge window, so he has to look up to spot me.
Common name: Eastern Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus eximius
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 10 April 2021 (autumn)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
Eastern Rosellas brighten a work day
Today I’m working from home. I heard a gentle twittering outside the window, and looked out just in time to see a male Eastern Rosella serenading his lady love.
I’ve seen and heard these birds a few times before, but this is the first time I’ve managed to see the female before they both fly away. Here she is, looking rather coy:
In my previous post you can see and hear the dance and calls that the male birds make. Interestingly, that post was almost exactly a year ago.
Common name: Eastern Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus eximius
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 10 March 2020 (late summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
Bird on a wire – Eastern Rosella pays a call
This pretty little parrot perched on an electric cable outside my window. Eastern Rosellas don’t come round often, so it’s a treat to see one.
At 30 cm in length, Eastern Rosellas are larger than the Rainbow Lorikeets and slightly smaller than the Crimson Rosellas that we see often in our area.
In the video below, you see the bird flicking its foot rapidly near its face, as if scratching an itch. I’ve seen them do this often, usually accompanied by calling and by fluffing their feathers. I think its more of a display dance than a remedy for an itch!
Common name: Eastern Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus eximius
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 2 March 2019 (late summer)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
Eastern Rosella calling and dancing
This has turned out to be parrot weekend in our garden. Yesterday four black cockatoos dropped by. Today it was two Eastern Rosellas. This is the first time I’ve managed to get a photo of one of these lovely birds. Its characteristic call drew me to the window. There it was on our Scribbly Gum tree right outside the window, dancing and chattering to its mate:
Knowing that these birds usually go about in pairs, I looked for the other one but didn’t see it until they both flew away, several minutes later. (The mate was higher up in the tree, hidden by the foliage.)
At 30 cm in length, Eastern Rosellas are slightly smaller than the Crimson Rosellas that we see more often in our area. This still shot shows the bird in all its beauty:
Common name: Eastern Rosella
Scientific name: Platycercus eximius
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 21 October 2018 (Spring)
Location: Allambie Heights, NSW, Australia
Sydney Birder 