A green male eclectus parrot and a crimson female eclectus parrot.
Sometimes the correct moments never arrive. In this case, I was present at the Bird Paradise after an employee had placed food on the feeder.
The crimson female electus parrot and the green male electus parrot were present together for breakfast at the same time for a brief moment.
Canon R5, lens 75 - 300mm
95mm, 1/500 sec, f/5, iso 1600
13 Jan 2026, 10.03am
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75mm, 1/500 sec, f/4,5, iso 1000
13 Jan 2026, 9.58am
male green Electus parrot (L)
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Heinsohn began studying these shy parrots in the remote northern rainforests of the Cape York Peninsular, Australia. This took some serious climbing skills as the parrots only nest in tree hollows 20-30m up.
Females do all the brooding and rarely leave the hollow, even after the chicks have fledged. This is highly unusual, but a good hollow is hard to find. The right species of nest tree is rare – just one per square kilometre – and cavities prone to flooding, which can drown the chicks.
So females in possession of lofty, dry hollows will guard their prime real estate with their life. Contests are frequent and can be fatal. Females are forced to stay put and defend their coveted hollows for 11 months of the year.
The only way a female avoids starvation is by being fed by males hoping to mate with her. Females might have up to five males in attendance, feeding chicks that aren’t even theirs. So, males spread their bets by servicing several females, giving the eclectus a curious polygynandrous mating system very different to most monogamous parrots.
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