Re: slide projector sought-health update
- To: m*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Re: slide projector sought-health update
- From: J* A*
- Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 10:55:46 +1000 (EST)
At 17:09 11/04/00 +1200, Moira wrote:
>Michael Barclay wrote:
> I'm
>> about to register a complex pink hybrid of (leptanthum x konori) selfed
>> X konori 'Pink'...she's to be dubbed 'Barclay's Rosella'---Rosellas are pink
>> australian kakatoos with great beauty.
>
>I hate to cast any cold water on your name for your lovely plant, but
>you really do need a short course on Australian parrots.
>
> A Rosella is not a Cockatoo, but a much smaller species called a
>parakeet (meaning I guess "little parrot"). And in spite of the
>rosy-sounding name Rosellas are a brilliant mix of green red and blue
>with alas no rose at all. They have been imported into NZ as pets and
>some have escaped and become feral here, where they are much more bold
>and inclined to come into the suburbs than our own native paraketes,
>which live in deep bush and so are rarely seen (they are also not so
>showy, being green with only small touches of either red or yellow).
>
>Cockatoos are the largest of the Australian parrots and as far as I know
>are mostly either white or black, though one of the white species sports
>a sulphur crest. Once again because of their popularity as cage birds
>they were much imported here in the past and the escapees now form large
>flocks in some areas, where they sometimes make an nuisence of
>themselves by stripping fruit or nut trees. At other times they feed
>harmlessly on wild fruits or pine cones.
>
>Almost all the other numerous species of Australian parrot are
>intermediate in size between the Rosella and the Cockatoos. It is among
>this group that there are pink parrots, most notably the Galah, a
>modest-sized bird a little bigger than the Rosella and a most vivid rose
>pink all over. It is occasionally seen here as a pet, but I don't know
>of any feral birds.
>
>To complete the account of Ozzie parrots there is of course the
>Bugerigar, which is the smallest of all and is I think a popular cage
>bird in many parts of the world.
>The tame ones come mainly in green, yellow, blue, grey and some fancy
>combinations, but never as far as I know in pink.
OK Moira, some minor corrections to your correction!
(1) There are several different smallish parrots called rosellas, all like
you say brightly coloured, of various colours and combinations of colours,
crimson, green, yellow, blue but not pink or white.
(2) There is, like you say, one very common large white cockatoo (with a
yellow crest) and several large black cockatoos (with touches of white,
yellow, or red). But there is also one large bright pink cockatoo (the
Major Mitchell). And the galah is actually a cockatoo too (a small one),
which is about half pink and half grey, and gets about the inland in
enormous noisy flocks. It might not be such a great idea to name your rose
after them however, since "galah" is Australian slang for a loud-mouthed fool.
(3) The budgerigar is small, but not the smallest of our parrots I think.
Wild budgies are green, all the other colours have been developed by the
breeders.
And, like you say, there are dozens of other Australian parrots, large and
small.
John.
