A month old

Our little Rainbow Lorikeet is now just over a month old and is really growing. We don't know whether it's a male or female, and probably never will as the only really reliable ways to tell are by DNA analysis, or by autopsy. So we came up with a name that can be either male or female. If you're a long time viewer of The Bill, you'll remember a male character called Tosh Lines and if you're a viewer of Torchwood you'll know of a female character also called Tosh (can't remember her surname off the top of my head, but it's something Japanese).

Having said that, if you notice me refering to Tosh as he, or him, it's just because it's easier than saying him/her, he/she, or it.



As you can see from the pictures, he's getting a lot more colour now that his feathers are growing. He'll eventually be blue on top of the head and below the chest, red and orange on the chest and green and some yellow elsewhere. That beak will eventually turn yellow as well.



Tosh isn't the first lorikeet we've hand raised, we had another couple that came early in the season that we named Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They weren't as young as Tosh though, they'd lost most of the grey downy feathers by the time we got them. They got to know us pretty well though and, now that they've been released, they come and visit us every day. In fact, we can't go and sit out on the back verandah with a cuppa in the afternoon unless we first put some food out for them. It's very awkward trying to drink your tea with a bird sitting on your hand trying to drink it with you.

It will be interesting to see what Tosh grows up like, since he only knows us as his parents. Once he gets old enough he'll go into the aviary with the older birds, but if he doesn't fit in then he may end up staying with us.

In future with lorikeets we'll try to use some kind of puppet that resembles an older lorikeet when we feed them. That way we may be able to avoid them imprinting on us. We do have the advantage that the main birds Tosh hears are lorikeets, that's when Bruce the cockateil isn't singing to him.

Edit; 17:51. Did I say his beak would turn yellow? I meant to say orange.