UKARUMPA, PNG — I’ve rarely had my binoculars fog as badly or persistently as they did this morning. It must have had something to do with the relatively cool temperatures and high humidity, but it certainly wasn’t helping as I tried to see field marks on the noisy parrots in a distant tree.

I saw a larger shape and assumed it was a Rainbow Lorikeet, but when I got it in the binocs, I saw a dark, stocky body and orange bands across the bird’s breast and belly. It seemed aggressive toward the other birds, spreading its wings and hopping toward them. Then my lenses fogged over completely.

The bird or (more probably) others like it offered me a few more looks, allowing me to see their large orange bills and pale yellow-orange crowns. They were slightly bulkier and shorter-tailed than the Rainbow Lorikeets that also fed in the trees. Their color scheme seemed odd for a parrot, as if they might fit in Halloween or Thanksgiving decorations.

Persistence rewarded me with a few glimpses of the tiny birds. All I could see was green, but there could have been field marks I simply wasn’t able to make out. A couple of times, I thought I saw red underwings when they flew. I think they were about the size of goldfinches.

I checked “Birds of New Guinea” before grabbing a slice of cold homemade pizza and heading for the office. The brown and orange birds were called Dusky Lories, and I began to suspect that the tiny ones were Pygmy Lorikeets.

I’d actually heard the tiny parrots calling on and off since Tuesday, and I knew that the call wasn’t something I’d heard the last time I was here. Nevertheless, it bears a marked resemblance to the calls of larger lorikeets, but with as little as I know that might not mean much of anything.

Pygmy Lorikeets are mostly green with red underwings (males), and they live in the mountains. Pygmy-parrots and the Papuan Hanging-Parrot are primarily lowland species with different behavior.

But, I think it’s worth waiting to see if I get a better look before I write them down. As you may recall, I thought I had Dusky Lories near Madang last year, but today’s looks were satisfying at last. May it be so for the Pygmy Lorikeets!

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed