Red-winged Parrots.

This post is for World Bird Wednesday.

I often hear Red-winged Parrots (Aprosmictus erythropterus) flying over my place but they seldom come down into any of the trees. The other day I heard one - then saw it fly down into a Grevillea bush. This particular Grevillea bush had almost finished flowering and had set seed. The Red-winged Parrots are seed eaters and these seeds must have been just right to their taste! I went closer as carefully as I could and there were two of them in the bushes. I stayed down there for nearly an hour trying for photos where the birds were not half hidden among the branches.
Finally one of the birds hopped down onto the fence - unfortunately in the shade and with a background of my neighbor's shade house. It looked at me as carefully as I was looking at it.
It sat and ate seeds and used its left foot to do this - in typical parrot fashion!
Finally it reached down towards some seed pods lower down and I could get a good look at the feathers on its back. The color was rather splotchy - only just beginning to get the dark color of the mature male.
Then the second bird hopped down to the same place and this one had the typical color of a mature male.
I kept waiting and taking photos and finally it hopped up higher into the bush and into the sunshine. There were some branches and leaves in front of it but the sunshine really showed off the colors beautifully.
I still didn't get the "perfect" photo - one without anything in front of the bird and in full sunshine! - but it was worth waiting for what I did get!