Here is a recent photo of my little friends having dinner on my balcony.
These are Rainbow Lorikeets. They are very social birds and don’t mind interacting with humans, so long as you have food. Their main diet is the nectar and pollen of native flowering plants as well as some soft fruit. I feed them a commercial package of pollen and cereal specifically designed for Lorikeets as they cannot handle seeds nor bread.
This picture shows the juveniles who congregate in flocks. When they pair off, they become very territorial, so I have a couple of other dishes where the dominant pairs can eat in private. Note the bird on the left does not have a hooked beak. His father also has the same shaped beak but is one of the dominant pairs, so it obviously doesn’t bother the females. There are a few very young birds that get pecked on by the rest and they are happy to eat out of my hand, so long as I keep the rest of the crowd away. Each bird has their own personality and I am slowly learning to identify one from the other.
Can you pick the sex of these birds just by looking at them? Some experts can. There are some subtle indications, but the best way is to observe their behaviour. The boys fight, the females eat. The boys display and gyrate in front of the girls, the females stand on one foot and push the boys away with the other, and continue to eat. When the girls are about two years old they respond, and they become very lovey-dovey. They mate for life. The male then stands guard while the female eats. Do you see a pattern here?
Six months ago I made a post called “It’s Almost Summer” and I featured Billy Thorpe singing the title song. It is now almost winter and Billy Thorpe is no longer with us, so he couldn’t record a song for this season. I saw Billy just before he died and I don’t wish to remember him like that, so I have what I think is the heart and soul of Billy Thorpe in this video:
I hope you like it, because it is one of my favourites.
Lately, my internet experience has been one of mass changes to maintain the status quo.
A couple of websites that I am a member of were hacked and after two months of angst, they are now up and running again. The problem being that I was a member through PayPal and now the websites only use Clickbank. If you’ve ever used Clickbank then you will know that they have an imaginative exchange rate that defies reality. No matter what the exchange rate currently is, it is always in their favour. At present, they are pocketing 10 cents in every dollar exchanged between $US and $AU.
The other website that I am a member of changed its website name to something totally different and moved its affiliate Scheme from Clickbank to Interfusion and promises to pay affiliates via PayPal.
I have therefore spent a few hours updating my website to accommodate the changes. This is a mute point as I haven’t earned any money from their advertisements before and I doubt that I will earn any money after the changes.
While I was updating my blog, I thought of this poem from Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland:
“The time has come The walrus said To talk of many things: Of shoes- and ships- And sealing wax- Of cabbages and kings- And why the sea is boiling hot- And whether pigs have wings.”
We truly live in a wonderland, and yes, the pigs are fed and ready to fly.
Did I say I maintained the Status Quo? Well, look how low they can go:
On a quiet night, whilst sipping a cleansing ale, I came across a video that I hadn’t seen in years. It may mean nothing to those who are not familiar with the Aussie lingo. Come to think of it, it may not mean anything to the younger generation either (Gen Y – oh what have we created?).
But I like it and that is what matters, on this blog anyway.
Warning: The following video contains adult themes.
If you don’t understand it, play it again. If you still don’t understand it, email me and I’ll try to explain…
The male then stands guard while the female eats. Do you see a pattern here? 
