Aussie Finch Forum

Check out this great footage of wild Blue Faced Parrot Finches and Red Brows Feeding, uploaded by John Griffiths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsoolTI3vjs

Thanks heaps for posting that Fireback. Much appreciated. Good old Signal Grass - excellent green seed (just starting to head here again after winter in the last week or so).

Nice one.

I'm not really familiar with BF Parroties in any detail but I do believe those in captivity are not our native FNQ ones. Can anyone describe the visual differences?

SamDavis wrote:Nice one.

I'm not really familiar with BF Parroties in any detail but I do believe those in captivity are not our native FNQ ones. Can anyone describe the visual differences?

They do seem to have a slightly longer slender bill and a larger blue mask but not really sure,love the lessers as well. If this is what i'm going to see next year including WB crimsons and WE masks, i'm looking forward to it.
Thanks for sharing Fb. Craig

If you have a closer look at the red brows, they have some similarity with lessers, eg black under the tail, gold olive coloured wings, silver to white under the throat. These birds were confused with lessers in the early days. It's hard to see in the footage, but I'm pretty sure they are Macgillivrayi an intergrade between the two. At a guess I think this footage would have been taken around the MT LEWIS area on the Tablelands, south of the lessers range. Cheers

Thanks for that, i thought they were a little duller in colour to lessers but as you said one of those cocks showed his bum and there was the black so i thought crappy looking lessers. Craig

From personal experience about 25 years ago, I observed these birds in an old timers aviary's in Cairns, who has since passed away a number of years ago. He claimed to have both types in captivity. I can remember the Aussie birds being kept separate in their own aviary. They are slightly larger birds in appearance and it was very hard to tell the sexes apart and they really jumped out at you in regards to the size of the blue mask and colouring, as they moved around the aviary. The so called more common blue faced parrot finches he had in other aviaries looked smaller in comparison and the blue mask wasn't as large and you could tell the hens from the cocks visually, quite easily. Cheers

Maybe a few Aff'ers tramping around the cape next year. Great footage anyone would be happy with that sight.