Greetings all,
I’m currently in Darwin pursuing my 12 month bird photography challenge (currently 460 species with 3 months to go). I was speaking to an American couple travelling up from the south who had an interesting encounter. They were camped around Arkaroola during early May and had their solar panels set up. Suddenly a flock of budgerigars landed on the panels, staying for about 10 minutes. Two or three birds landed on one gentleman’s arm before, in his opinion, “they realised their mistake and took of”. He believed that they had mistaken the panels for pools of water. I’d not heard of this before. Has anyone else witnessed anything like this? If it happens often then it might be time to change my power source and kill two birds with the same stone! (pun intended).
Regards,
Gary Oliver
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
Comments
2 responses to “Solar panels and budgies?”
Had a very similar experience with Scarlet-chested Parrots in Yumbarra Conservation Park, north Of Ceduna, SA. Only a few birds but certainly behaving as though the car roof was wet. And yes, they seemed more interested in the wet looking shiny paint than in keeping an eye on us. This was in the early morning of a January day when temperatures frequently reach 40+. Saw a similar thing another year at the same place when the temp later reached 48.
Tony
Gary. That’s very interesting. Just recently I was birding at Mt Lyndhurst Station. On returning to my car there were Budgies all over the bonnet, on the roof, and perched along the windscreen wipers. I couldn’t work out what the attraction was, but it must have been strong because the birds allowed a much closer approach than normal and kept returning to the car after they were disturbed. Cheers Steve Murray