Rainbow Lorikeets and Temperature Gradients
Posted by jennifer, August 23rd, 2009 - under Opinion, Uncategorized.
Tags: Advertisements, Birds, Plants and Animals
RECENTLY the Australian Department of Climate Change released a report suggesting that global warming would severely threaten many native species.
While it is currently very fashionable to emphasis the influence temperature can have on the distribution and abundance of plant and animal species, let’s not ignore the very broad geographic ranges of many species, or the words of the early naturalists, including Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). Mr Wallace wrote:
“NOWHERE does the ancient doctrine—that differences or similarities in the various forms of life that inhabit different countries are due to corresponding physical differences or similarities in the countries themselves—meet with so direct and palpable a contradiction [as in the Malay Archipelago]. Borneo and New Guinea, as alike physically as two distinct countries can be, are zoologically wide as the poles asunder; while Australia, with its dry winds, its open plains, its stony deserts, and its temperate climate, yet produces birds and quadrupeds which are closely related to those inhabiting the hot damp luxuriant forests, which everywhere clothe the plains and mountains of New Guinea.”
The Australasian parrot, the rainbow lorikeet, Trichoglossus haemotadus, is a case in point. It has a distribution extending through eastern Indonesia, New Guinea, and along the entire eastern seaboard of Australia, from Queensland to Tasmania.
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Notes and Links
I understand there is some dispute whether the populations of rainbow lorikeet in eastern Indonesia represent the same or a different, but closely related, species to those in eastern Australia. Nevertheless it is apparent that this species or species complex has a distribution more influenced by its evolutionary history than temperature gradients.
Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, Chapter 1, http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wallace/alfred_russel/malay/chapter1.html
The picture of the lorikeets was taken by Jennifer Marohasy at Great Keppel Island on Sunday August 23, 2009…
IF you would like a printed A4-sized copy of this picture make a donation to the running of this blog – see orange button at the top RHS of this page – and I will send you an autographed copy with an Alfred Wallace quote about lorikeets.
An acquaintance is a bird fancier, who kept several feathered friends–including a Lorikeet–in the house. He needed to have newspaper spread around the L cage at all times, because his Lorikeet let fly on the fly. If you like these beautiful birds, a picture would be less problematic than a pet.
Even if there was some serious temperature sensitivity in these species, the fact remains that most of the measured “warming” has manifest itself as higher night time minimum temperatures that pose no threat to anyone. Most of the remaining warmer daytime maximums take place in Autumn, Winter and Spring where, again, they pose no threat to anyone. And even when new extreme maximums take place in Summer the evidence is overwhelming that pockets of coolness still persist which can be exploited by most species.
South facing rock formations (or north facing in NH) that remain in shadow in midsummer will always remain below recorded atmospheric temperatures, as Rock Wallabies and Euros well know. And just as for the human population in heat waves, it is the already sick and vulnerable that fall victim while the healthy population just bide their time till sunset.
My theory is that Lorikeets are not pretty beautiful birds, they are aggressive scary birds that dominate the birds around them :) When they open their wings and flap them at other birds it’s a distinctly aggressive action saying buzz off.
I have a lorikeet ( I call him Buzz) that dominates my veranda – he chases away the Galahs which are over twice his size, bower birds, doves, magpies and butcher birds.
He also buzzes off the other Lorikeets and the only bird unfazed by his constant aggression is the Kookas.
Rainbow Lorikeets used to be a rare sight when I was a kid and Scaley Breasted Lorikeets were everywhere. Since people started feeding them [janama, stop pleasurin' thaself laddie] they have become the dominant species and the Musk, Little and Scaley Bs have become rare.
I couldn’t imagine GW giving them any grief. Today’s unseasonal warm temperatures have the birds getting very sexually active.
This is what worries the hemorrhagic greens.
Think of what must be happening in China and India!
I have scaley breasteds as well drongo.
” Why geeks get the girls” – Journal of Animal Behaviour
In Australia ugly but smart birds get the girls!!! ( This applies to humans as well according to new research);)
From New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17640-why-geeks-get-the-girls.html
It’s not quite that simple Ann. From what I’ve read girls would like to get the bad boys, yet have a good boy as a husband to look after the offspring. Birds are well known to be similar ;)
maybe that’s why we call girls, birds.
I recall a nature documentary by Attenborough in which he explained that the euphonious twittering of birds isn’t what it seems at all – rather it’s apparently the, presumably unseemly, uttered threats of birds telling others to F*** off out their birdy domain, like tweet tweet out of my yard you norty norty tweeter, you (putting on his best Bluebottle voice).
But then attributing human characteristics to animals seems a peculiarly human obsession.
My horses don’t like these lorikeets, or the green parrots they often run with, around here.
[S E Qld]
With our half a dozen tropical apple & peache trees, we used to get 2 or 3 weeks of harvesting ripe fruit, before the fruit fly would arrive. The horses would then get a few buckets of fruit every day , for a couple of weeks, & really enjoyed their job of getting rid of the grubs, before they matured. They seemed to prefer the added protein type fruit.
Now the lorikeets, & greens have found us, they get stuck in, before the fruit are even quarter grown. They don’t even bother to pick the things.
I get 5 to 10mm long apple cores hanging all over the trees. The horses will still accept these poor offerings, but I don’t get the same exuberant welcome I was used to, when the buckets contained fully grown ripe added protein fruit.
Again another case of biased research or reporting which prompts me to copy here my letter to The Australian published last year February:
“One only has to take about 50 things humans like (butterflies, cave paintings, wine, peace, health) and 50 things we don’t like (sharks, feral cats, jellyfish, allergies, crime, drought, floods) and perform a Google search for each in combination with the term ‘global warming” or “climate change’ and the following will emerge: anything we like will be negatively affected and anything we don’t like will benefit.
For example, you will never find butterflies thriving and cockroaches suffering. Since the forces of nature are insensitive to the subjective preferences of humans, one would expect a balanced outcome of thriving or declining likes and dislikes. Since this is not the case, the statistical significance of this exercise allows us to draw the conclusion that the science of climate change is alarmist and subject to severe bias.”
And the Australian Department of Climate Change forgets two very important process which takes place everywhere in the world of biomes:
1. Ecological Succession.
2. Trichoglossus haematodus is not an Australian native species.
In consequence, the report from the Australian Department of Climate Change about lorikeets’ population follows the classical AGW pseudoscience inertia.
I don’t find any problem concerning lorikeets’ population. Biomes are continuously changing and the transitions are quite normal (natural). Changes in populations occur always under the pressure of biological and physical factors. Additionally, rainbow lorikeets are an invasive species which was accidentally released in Australia some 50 years ago, so this species is not an Australian native species.
The species mentioned, Trichoglossus haematodus is a pest everywhere in the infested countries and is threatening the existence of real-native bird species. They are in nature insatiable and compete for food with other species such as hummingbirds. In the remote case that the invasive species (lorikeets) fails the biological battle, it would be positive for the Australian native species. Rainbow lorikeets are highly territorial and attack successfully to members of other species moving them to other locations where the native species won’t survive or leading them to death by starvation.
Chris,
I took the liberty of reposting your letter to The Australian at free-association.net. My comment:
It’s comforting to know that individuals working independently–without the benefit of government research grants–can still make significant scientific discoveries. The spirit of 19th Century science is not dead!
Link http://tinyurl.com/na4e2u
Ann Novek wrote:
“In Australia ugly but smart birds get the girls!!! ( This applies to humans as well according to new research);)”
That’s not completely accurate in my case. Maybe I should practice up on the laugh from the film, Revenge of the Nerds. A pocket protector may also prove to be helpful.
Comment from: Larry Fields August 25th, 2009 at 5:16 am
Chris,
I took the liberty of reposting your letter to The Australian at free-association.net.
Good idea, Larry! Here a translation to Spanish for those colleagues who would like to send Chris’s and Larry’s letters to their local newspapers:
Larry’s Comment:
“Es reconfortante saber que personas que trabajan independientemente, sin el beneficio de concesiones para investigación por parte del Gobierno todavía hacen importantes descubrimientos científicos. ¡El espíritu de la ciencia del siglo XIX no ha muerto!” (Larry Fields)
Chris’s Comment:
“Escoja 50 cosas que les gustan a los seres humanos (mariposas, bosques, pinturas rupestres, vino, paz, salud) y 50 cosas que no les gustan (tiburones, gatos salvajes, medusas, alergias, delincuencia, sequías, huracanes, calor) y realice una búsqueda en la Internet usando cada una de esas cosas en combinación con el término “calentamiento global ” o “cambio climático ’ y descubrirá lo siguiente: cualquier cosa que nos gusta será afectada perjudicialmente y cualquier cosa que no nos gusta será favorecida.”
“Por ejemplo, nunca encontraremos en nuestra búsqueda a mariposas prosperando y a cucarachas sufriendo, a pesar de que estas últimas están siendo afectadas por la prolongación del invierno en regiones norteñas del Hemisferio Norte. Dado que las fuerzas de la naturaleza son insensibles a las preferencias subjetivas de los seres humanos, uno esperaría un resultado equilibrado de prosperidad y declive, gustos y disgustos. Dado que este no es el caso, el significado estadístico de este ejercicio nos permite concluir que la “ciencia” del cambio climático es alarmista y está siendo sujeta a una severa manipulación.” (Chris Schoneveld)
Nasif – wiki disagrees with your statements – the lorikeet was released in western australia 50 years ago but otherwise it’s a native parrot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Lorikeet
Comment from: janama August 25th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Nasif – wiki disagrees with your statements – the lorikeet was released in western australia 50 years ago but otherwise it’s a native parrot.
Dear Janama…
Not at all… Actually, wiki agrees with my stataments. Read the section “Status” from the same article, subsection “As a Pest”.
Rainbow lorikeets were introduced from Indonesia to an aviary in the state of Western Australia some 50 years ago. The lorikeets invaded Southwestern tropical forests of Australia from the University of Western Australia and now the species constitutes a pest in both Australia and New Zealand:
http://www.cbd.int/doc/case-studies/ais/cs-ais-nz-lorikeet-en.pdf
When a species is introduced into a new area and it doesn’t find natural enemies, but instead it finds the biological and physical conditions for its prosperity, it could constitute a pest. This is the case for dogs, rabbits, parrots and other species (including plants) introduced into Australia. Generally, the native species, which have natural enemies, will succumb under the competition exerted by the invasive species.
I was born in 1956 and grew up in Melbournes northern suburbs, yet I don’t recall ever seeing rainbow lorikeets in Melbourne until about 20 years ago. Maybe they were there before that but I didn’t see them. Does any one else think they are relatively new to Melbourne? As an aside I live near Essendon Airport and last week there were about 20 Black Cockatoos in the area, again I have not seen them around here before.
Good stuff fellers,
In WA they’ll be predicting its escallation and in Qld its demise.
I’m sorry Nasif but I must disagree – it does mention it being released into WA in the 60s, also NZ but the native species Swainson’s Lorikeet, T. h. moluccanus – is native to eastern Australia and Tasmania.
According to Birds in Backyards: http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/bird/97
“The Rainbow Lorikeet occurs in coastal regions across northern and eastern Australia, with a local population in Perth (Western Australia), initiated from aviary releases.”
It was abundent up to the end of the 19th century…..
Comment from: janama August 25th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I’m sorry Nasif but I must disagree – it does mention it being released into WA in the 60s, also NZ but the native species Swainson’s Lorikeet, T. h. moluccanus – is native to eastern Australia and Tasmania.
According to Birds in Backyards: http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/bird/97
“The Rainbow Lorikeet occurs in coastal regions across northern and eastern Australia, with a local population in Perth (Western Australia), initiated from aviary releases.”
It was abundent up to the end of the 19th century…
Wiki says something different:
“The Rainbow Lorikeet was accidentally released into the southwest of the state of Western Australia from the University of Western Australia in the 1960s and they have since been classified as a pest.” (Emphasis is mine)
And these people also:
http://www.cbd.int/doc/case-studies/ais/cs-ais-nz-lorikeet-en.pdf
And I have been aware of this invasion of lorikeets in Australia since 1975.
Let’s throw a coin… :)
@janama…
Anyway, rainbow lorikeets constitute a pest in several countries and they are not threatened by any climate change, which is the point of this thread.
“While it is currently very fashionable to emphasis the influence temperature can have on the distribution and abundance of plant and animal species, let’s not ignore the very broad geographic ranges of many species, or the words of the early naturalists, including Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). Mr Wallace wrote:”
So if we ignore the species that don’t have a very broad geographic range, then we don’t have a problem.
In Australia, Rainbow Lorikeets are one of those native species that have adapted well to urban environments. It may be that fashionable native garden plants like grevillias and banksias attract them. One of the interesting behaviours they have is to congregate in noisy tree roosts at well lit places, like busy street intersections or large suburban shopping centres.
Definitely quite deafening at dusk.
Other native birds that have recently seen the benefits of suburbia are the noisy miner, pied currawong, australian magpie, torresian crow, sacred ibis and the bush turkey. There are quite a few bully boys in that bunch. Some of these species will actually hound Indian Mynahs out of their territory. With the dominance of these species many smaller native birds have declined from the suburbs. eg I rarely see a willy wagtail these days. And what has happened to the european sparrow? It’s vanished, but that may be for other reasons.
Stand under the tall palm trees in surfers paradise and all you hear is the lorikeets, same at Coolangatta.
I agree with Dave b – it’s the food we offer in our gardens. When we had fine english gardens they weren’t around but since we moved to establishing native plant gardens throughout our cities they have thrived – along with White cockatoos etc. Your average cockee can feed himself in the morning and have all afternoon to rip the paint off your eaves.
@Dave b…
Definitely, many species have disappeared, at least locally or regionally, due to dominance of other species.
As you say, there are other reasons which cause some smaller native species become extinct. The physical environment is always changing, in the first place, and the same living beings change their environments, sometimes causing their own extinction. There is not an ultimate cause, but the concurrence of many factors which cause the extinction of species. Homo sapiens var. sapiens is now a dominant species; but H. sapiens var. sapiens not always is the cause of extinction. We know humans have caused the extinction of some species; nature has caused almost all massive extinctions, however. We know that the possibility of a possible displacement and extinction of human beings in the future caused by other successful species can occur; with or without climate changes. And I am not talking about viruses or AGW-made catastrophes, but on the normal long course of stochastic biological evolution. Who knows?
A climate change modifies the stability of the communities established during previous periods under other climatic conditions, but it is not the ultimate factor of change. Indeed, climate has driven countless times the distribution of the species upon the Earth’s face, the dawn or the dusk of many species. But this is far away from being a “climate change solo” (I mean only due to climate changes). There are many causes, including the changes caused by the own species on its own habitat.
The problem is that some people think the current climate change is anthropogenic and the unique cause of changing communities; they close their eyes and cover their ears to any evidence on a natural explanation and the previous knowledge gathered through many years by dedicated honest scientists. They are changing the sense of physical concepts, ecology (i.e. climax communities), laws, etc. by creating confusion about the scientific descriptions of terms, processes, etc. Those people go by there writing articles on Wikipedia and blogs so the people seeking for knowledge about climate change stumble upon their personal twisted ideas, which often are product of their imagination.
“And what has happened to the european sparrow? It’s vanished, but that may be for other reasons.”
Dave B,
Yes, that is a mystery. I know people are building more sparrow-proof houses [they used to nest in eaves in large numbers] but there are still plenty of old houses about and sparrows were great survivors. Every summer we would be subjected to lice from sparrows in the eaves under a hot iron roof so I can’t see it being the result of a very slight warming.
It’s like the frog, a world wide event.
Be good to see some research funding diverted from AGW to sparrows.
http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/node/6479
Janama
White cocky’s – are those what we call Corellas here in WA?
White cocky’s – are those what we call Corellas here in WA?
Louis,
The corella is closely related to the “white cocky” (sulphur crested cockatoo) but a fair bit smaller 38cm length vs 46 cm. According to my field guide the s.c. cockatoo is found locally around Perth, but I imagine is an introduction like the kookaburra (large Australian kingfisher) from the eastern states. The corella is also in the east but generally prefers the dryer country away from the coast. I believe s.c. cockatoos and galahs (pink and grey cockatoos) have found their way from the inland plains to coastal areas in recent decades. There is a theory that land clearing on the coast has produced favourable habitat for them.
Sulphur crested cockatoos are highly intelligent and I think quite mischievous as Janama has alluded to. But they are no match for the kea, or New Zealand mountain parrot, this bird wins the prize for pure comic entertainment and destructive mayhem.
For those not in OZ a “cocky” also refers to a man on the land i.e farmer, also some one who keeps a lookout for the law while some underhand activity, like illegal gambling is taking place. Comes from the way these birds generally post a lookout when they are feeding.
A “galah” also is colloquial for a stupid person, regretably this attractive bird doesn’t deserve that reputation!
The decline of the sparrow does appear to be worldwide and quite similiar to the frogs as spangled has said. No doubt there will be some guilt laden anthroprogenic theory advanced. But like stomach ulcers don’t underestimate the power of microbial nature.
Nasif Nahle and Larry Fields,
Thanks for the recognition!
Chris
Btw Nasif I don’t think the Rainbow Lorrikets are a pest in NZ. There are none in the wild . Some people keep them in cages. I think that if any were released the little blighters would quickly starve or be frozen to death. Not to mention their comparatively slow flight and gaudy colours would make them sitting ducks for our native hawks.
Apologies Nasif ,didn’t know about the Auckland problem.
@Mack…
Apologies accepted. No problem. :)
Regarding Rainbow lorikeets, there is something that janama should take into consideration; it is related with the ability of Rainbow lorikeets for easily adapting to fast changing environments. This evolutionary ability has placed rainbow lorikeets in their current position of an intermingled species, that is, a species that is present in an ample variety of biomes. Perhaps rainbow lorikeets will be confined to a small community in a limited area in thousands of years; nevertheless, rainbow lorikeets are not now in peril of shrinking their population by the almost imperceptible modern changes of climate.
I used to live on the beachfront north of Byron Bay at New Brighton. I remember back around 1992 there was a severe drought inland and one day a pair of galahs appeared – they were soon followed by others. We’d never seen galahs on the beach before but now they are a regular bird along the coast.
“As an aside I live near Essendon Airport and last week there were about 20 Black Cockatoos in the area, again I have not seen them around here before.”
sfw,
Apologies, I missed that remark earlier.
Do you know what type of Black Cockatoo they were? Yellowtails are about the only BC that has that area as listed teritory.
Not sure why whats on wiki is now quoted as authoritative on status of Australian birds?
The rainbow lorikeet is native to northern and eastern Australia, and was recently and accidentally released into the suburbs of Perth where it thrives, typically at the expense of the local ringnecked parrot.
Whether the lorikeets can escape the confines of the city and move into the south west is not yet clear.
To clear up some of the comments about ‘white cockatoos’….there are 4 species which are typically confused by the layperson.
sulphur crested cockatoos are native to northern and eastern Australia, but there are a few escapees in Perth suburbs. Not clear whether escapees are establishing a foothold, or whether the birds inevitably die, but there is always a small pool of recent escapees.
the other white cockatoos are the 3 species of corella, of which 1 species, the little corella has 4 races and is widespread across arid Australia, and is the species Louis Hissink is probably most familiar with. A second species, the western corella is endemic to the southwest, and has 2 races.
The 3rd species is the long billed corella which is endemic to south eastern australia but has also been introduced to Perth suburbs where it is doing very well with flocks of hundreds of birds in some parts of the city.
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[...] The photograph of the spur-winged plover was taken on Great Keppel Island by Jennifer Marohasy. This is part 2 of a new series on the distribution and abundance of species – and temperature gradients. ‘Rainbow Lorikeets and Temperature Gradients’ (Part 1) is here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/08/rainbow-lorikeets-and-temperature-gradients/ [...]
T.H moluccanus aka Rainbow Lorikeet is a very dominate bird for its size and it is true that they are making a definate incline in population in Melbourne. I read a while back that they were a species in Melbourne but due to the clearing of a lot of lowland trees and habitat around Melbourne early in the 19th century there numbers went to virtually zero but as green belts of land started to be grown in around the city Rainbow lorikeets started to be found around the seventies and have been growing in population ever since. I think that they are a great bird all be it a noisy bird to have around. They push out the Indian Mynas for the breeding tree hollows and really are not any threat to any other native birds as they are predominately nectar eaters. i would prefer a native bird to take over rather than some introduced species. You may as well embrace them as they are not going anywhere.