Wild Rainbow Lorikeets fond of pellets

I had cause to smile this morning as I wandered out to my desk. There were about twelve Rainbow Lorikeets on the shed roof, nomming up the leftover food (mostly pellets) my son threw there yesterday after freshening our own birds' food containers.

So often, I see people posting about their companion birds who don't or won't eat pellets, yet here was a wild flock gobbling them up like there was no tomorrow. The arrival of some pesky crested pigeons and noisy miners never caused the parrots to skip a beat. They just gobbled until there were no pellets left!

Doesn't surprise me Trish. My little HRH Lilly Pilly LOVES her some Vetafarm pellets, and the good news is her doctor says she is fine to have them as long as she doesn't go overboard. However, I have a MUCH tougher time keeping Fang and Val away from the lorikeet food, they sneak into Lilly's cage like ninjas the moment my back is turned!

I imagine the wildies like the pellets for the novelty factor as much as anything else.

LOL! Don't you reckon the fact that they taste absolutely *foul* comes into it, even a tiny little bit? I'm amazed my lot will eat them at all, but they do. Interestingly, no one else will: not the miners, nor the maggies nor the butcherbirds (they all prefer dry catfood).

PS. Just remembered! We were out gardening the other day when a Long-billed Corella came to our smaller gumtree and called to Rosetta. She nearly went mad bellowing back to him and we were all agog, trying to spot him in the tree. (They're amazingly hard to find, despite being day-glo white against the foliage). When we finally did spot him, I'm absolutely convinced he muttered 'Hello Cocky' to me as I made encouraging noises. Then, he swooped down as if to land on my head, but at the last minute pulled up into the air and flew off over the swamp. The kids reckon I was imagining the 'Hello Cocky', but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it was an escaped pet. Hope he comes back again!

Weeeelllll..........not being a huge consumer of pellets myself I couldn't say for sure about the taste. Maybe it's a textural thing, the crunch being a bit of a departure from the usual nectar and fruit, given that they do eat the occasional insect in the wild too. Or perhaps it just proves what I've always thought about lorikeets - all that sugar in their diet makes them just a tiny bit mad!!

Hope your possible corella runaway comes back for a return visit too, there must be any number of escapees out there