This Eastern Rosella seems unaffected by the fame the species is enjoying. Photo: Ian Fraser.
When a seven-year-old boy from Sydney went viral with a song inspired by the Eastern Rosellas, he joined a long queue of people who had been inspired by this exquisite parrot from early in the days of European Australia.
As soon as the Sydney colony was founded in 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip realised that to feed the colony he needed to find more suitable arable land than the sandstone-based coastal heaths.
It was decades before the plains beyond the Blue Mountains were accessed by the colonists, but the grassy woodlands where Parramatta now stands proved ideal. (They were ideal for woodlands too, but let’s not get distracted.)
The settlement was founded in November of that year and named Rose Hill the following year.
Among the birds that lived there, but weren’t seen at the coast, was a spectacular red, green, yellow and blue parrot. It often fed close to or on the ground on fruit and seeds, and readily came to where wheat had been spilt, so was familiar even to people who didn’t otherwise take much notice of wildlife.
They became known as Rose Hill Parrots.
In an early example of what we’d now think of as typical Australian fondness for a nickname, their name rapidly elided to Rose Hillers. However, the name Rose Hill only lasted a couple of years, and in 1791 Phillip renamed it Parramatta, in accordance with the name used by the local Darug people.
As the origin of the parrot’s name was lost, it was further shortened to Rozelle and finally to Rosella. (I know, I raised my eyebrows at this one too, but it’s very well documented.)
These days, we know it as just one of six closely related rosella species, but until well into the 20th century, it was known simply as the Rosella.
Eastern Rosella bathing and drinking on Mount Majura. Photo: Ian Fraser.
The only other one in the Sydney (and indeed Canberra) area, the Crimson Rosella, was known simply as Crimson Parrot until 1926, when a committee of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union was charged with overhauling and formalising the common names of all Australian birds. (The same applied to the other four rosellas too.)
It was known from time to time by other names, many of them applied informally by laypeople. I think my favourite of these, though, was Nonpareil Parrot (ie ‘unequalled’) by the prolific but erratic British ornithologist John Latham in 1802.
Before him, the English zoologist George Shaw formally described it in 1792, giving it the species name of eximius, meaning excellent or uncommon – no arguments there!
Eastern Rosellas are woodland birds and would once have had the Canberra plains to themselves, at least with regard to other rosellas.
Crimson Rosellas are primarily birds of the ranges and hill forests and probably followed river lines into the plains as well. But with the development of the new capital and its plantings and gardens, good Crimson Rosella habitat was created.
We have an unusual situation here where the two rosella species live side by side, though the Easterns prefer to stick more to open areas.
They tend to get pushed aside by the bigger, rowdier and stroppier Crimsons, and don’t come to feeders so often. Occasionally the two species even hybridise; they separated long enough ago to become distinct species, but not so long ago that hybrids are impossible. Mostly, however, such hybrids are infertile.
Further afield they are found from south-eastern Queensland to Tasmania and south-eastern South Australia.
Eastern Rosella at a nest hollow in Canberra. Photo: Ian Fraser.
Like most parrots, they breed in tree hollows, generally in eucalypts, though other, less likely sites occasionally recorded include hollow fence posts, fallen logs, rabbit burrows, elkhorn ferns on the sides of houses, and even a deserted hollow created by kookaburras in a termite nest in a tree.
A mated pair stays together all year round in the same general area, often feeding with others of their kind. The female seems to do most or all of the egg brooding, though the male attends her closely, including when she leaves the nest to feed. When the chicks hatch, both parents assist in feeding them.
Their reliance on eucalypt hollows – which form when eucalypts are probably close to a hundred years old – means they compete not only with other native hollow nesters but starlings, mynas and feral honeybees. Meanwhile, of course, the number of old eucalypts is declining.
Despite this, Eastern Rosellas are doing well and continue to delight us – and even act as muses to up-and-coming rockers.
Ian Fraser is a Canberra naturalist, conservationist and author. He has written on all aspects of natural history, advised the ACT Government on biodiversity and published multiple guides to the region’s flora and fauna.
