Crimson Rosella

This bird is far to colourful to be a native of Central Europe!

And then one day you wake up, walk from your bedroom to your livingroom, look outside (from our livingroom we have an excellent view on our feeding table) and you wish that the night before you 'd taken less alcohol. Then slowly it dawns upon you that it has got nothing to do with your alcohol consumption and your mouth falls open. There sits a beautiful, rather big colourful bird, with a striking, extremely red front. We presumed that it was some kind of parrot, but were wrong. It visited our garden for about one week and then disappeared and we never saw it again. I really do hope the rightful owner got it back, because winters here in western Europe are far too harsh for these birds. On May 28th 2001 we received an e-mail from Ronny Koopmans. And he told us the name of the bird. It actually is a parakeet and belongs to the family of Broad-tailed Parakeets. They originate from South-West Australia and eat all kinds of seeds, but insects such as caterpillars, leatherjackets, termites and green flies as well. Thank you Ronny!

Name of this bird in various other languages
Dutch	German	French	Polish	Scientific
Grote Pennant-Rosella	Pennantsittich	Perruche de Pennant	Rozella królewska	Platycercus elegans