Occasionally I find gnawed branches in the garden. I’ve blamed the possums but the damage could just as well have been inflicted by Crimson Rosellas.

When we first moved here, a profusion of beautiful roses grew on the eastern side of the house. Their decline coincided with the discovery of a length of chain, half buried in the soil, also on that side of the house. I guessed it had been used to chain up the dog that used to live here.

So here’s my conclusion:
rosellas + possums + dog = roses
rosellas + possums – dog = no roses

I’ve thought of netting what’s left of the roses but I’m sure that the Rosellas would just poke their beaks through and continue to gnaw.

Since the cold weather arrived, we’ve seen more Crimson Rosellas here than we’ve seen in previous years. Seeing as it’s been so dry, we’re not sure why that is although perhaps last Summer was a good season for the district’s fruit.

Our meagre crops of plums, apricots and cherries no sooner appeared than they were all nipped off. And that’s in spite of the netting. Disheartened, we collected the unripe fruit before it began to rot on the ground.

Apart from those acts of vandalism, Crimson Rosellas are generally quiet visitors who graze on the front lawn until the merest movement causes them to take flight in a flurry of crimson and blue.

The picture above was taken from a distance, through the living room window, hence its lack of definition. I would have liked to include the other bird, on the opposite branch, but that would have reduced clarity even more. Still, the main objective was to show you how bright the Rosella looks on the branch of a deciduous shrub on a dull day.

Crimson Rosellas have a wide repertoire of calls, ranging from the brassy to the piping. If you click here, you’ll hear just one. According to the book Bird Life by Ian Rowley, a study conducted in Armidale, New South Wales, many years ago, found that the Crimson Rosella had 21 different calls. It was second only to the Eastern Rosella, which came in at 25 calls.

Crimson Rosellas nest in a shallow bowl of decayed wood dust in a hole in a tree. They nearly always appear in the garden in pairs. Their young, with a greenish tinge to their feathers, are sometimes confused with the Eastern Rosella, which also inhabits this area but not in the numbers of its more colourful counterpart.

I’ve been reading about the origin of the word Rosella. According to The Land of Parrots, An historical sketch, compiled by R.J. McMillan and published on the Parrot Society website, it seems that the bird’s name was derived from the old name for the Eastern Rosella: Rose Hill Parakeet. It’s thought that perhaps the name was then shortened to ‘Rose-Hillier’ and finally to Rosella.

However old shooting lists of the 1830s called the birds Rosetta parrots. When one of John Gould’s collectors, John Gilbert, first recorded the name ‘Rosella’ in his diary, could he have omitted to cross the ‘t’s?

A rose by any other name is still a rose. And a Rosella by any other name still gladdens the heart with its appearance in the garden on a cold and foggy morning.