Lorus Lory?or a Black-capped Lory and attributed to Papua New Guinea has indeed been misidentified and is actually Fiji's very own endangered species ...
Prosopeia Splendens... which the books say is known as Crimson Shining Parrot but was, in fact, better known to us all as our beloved, unique and endemic Kadavu Parrot.
OK! Looked it all up! I will spare you all the details and just say, with head hanging, that is indeed a Papua New Guinean Lorus Lory! In fact, and I'm most embarrassed to admit this, that, although their plumage is similar, they are actually different species: Prosopeia splendens is a Psittacidae while Lorus lory is a Loriidae.
However, the good news is that I discovered on an endangered species website that Prosopeia splendens is no longer on the endangered species list. Here's what website has to say about this bird:
Prosopeia splendens is endemic to Fiji where it occurs naturally on the islands of Kadavu and Ono. It has recently been reported to be widespread and common on the former. Reports of breeding on other islands need to be confirmed and are likely to originate from long-lived escaped cage-birds.
(Mmmm, both ours and the Hawleys escaped their cages. Hey, maybe there's also a subspecies living up in the jungles of Tamavua.) (No, wait! Only the Hawley's escaped. Ours was "Jane-ed"!)
(Mmmm, both ours and the Hawleys escaped their cages. Hey, maybe there's also a subspecies living up in the jungles of Tamavua.) (No, wait! Only the Hawley's escaped. Ours was "Jane-ed"!)
The website then goes on to say "The area of dense and medium-dense forest on Kadavu is around 225 km2 so a reasonable population estimate for Crimson Shining-Parrot would be 6,000 birds" so therefore it actually should be classified as "Vunerable" rather than "Endangered".
Well, that's very good to know so I don't feel nearly as foolish as I should regarding my doubts about the ability of HK Aviary to properly classify their bird collection.
Much later:
As the wise and beautiful Lady R. points out in the comment below, I appear to have downloaded the wrong photo of Lorus Lory, and this is, in fact, your everyday NQ Rainbow Lorikeet. BUT ... that photo was taken 100% at HK Aviary and HK Aviary does not HAVE any Rainbow Lorikeets! Look at the list of birds they do have by pressing the link: no Rainbow Lorikeets at all!
So they HAVE misidentified!!! They have! They have! Yayyyy!!!
Lady R., shall we sort this one out first before we let them know?
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1 comment:
Um, D-Baby, the photo doesn't look anything like a Black-capped Lory to me. What is looks EXACTLY like is a plain old Rainbow Lorikeet. Are you absotively posilutely sure you photographed the correct specimen? Love, R xxx
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