Australian Ringneck (Barnardius zonarius)

The Australian Ringneck (Barnardius zonarius) flies across the road and along the pathway in the dry landscape of inland Australia. Adding sparkle to the dry landscape is their shimmering plumage, now green and now yellow in the sunlight. River gums Eucalyptus camaldulensis can be found along creek banks, along belts of timber along roads, and in pockets of taller mallee.

Their range in southwestern Australia extends to thick jarrah and karri forests, as well as to E. marginata and E. diversicolor, occupying the same niche as the Blue-cheeked Rosella does in eastern Australia. Ringnecks blend extremely well with their surroundings, blending into the outer foliage of eucalyptus and other trees or feeding on the ground, their green, blue, black, and yellow plumage camouflaging rather than drawing attention to the bird.

The Australian Ringneck diet includes seeds of grasses, herbs, eucalypts, cypress pines, acacias, fruit, blossoms, leaf buds, and occasionally insects. Rosellas have lighter bills, which are well adapted to tearing open hard fruits, which they often clasp or tether in their left foot. Frequently clambering about foliage and foraging quietly, ringnecks remain quite silent when they are on the ground while they chatter quietly.

Ringnecks tend to pair permanently, remaining in ones or twos during the breeding season or forming small groups of five to eight when not breeding. There are probably two adult pairs of birds and one or more young of the year in each group. After roosting in tree crowns overnight, they leave to feed soon after sunrise, pause to drink, and then return to their roosts later in the morning. Foraging for seeds and fallen fruits is done in the shade during the hottest part of the day.

The birds become active again around dusk, feeding and drinking before roosting. Ringnecks are sedentary birds, living close to their birthplaces. Banded birds have been re-trapped at their banding site several times over the past decade. The birds are nevertheless excellent flyers, their rapid flapping low among trees interrupted by swooping glides on folded wings reminiscent of the Crimson Rosella’s flight.

Their tails are fanned as they land, swooping up to a branch. It is common for group landings to be accompanied by a lot of chatter and tail-wagging. After calling, the ringnecks sometimes attract more than a dozen other birds, whose clinking and chattering causes the disturbance. There is an increased level of noise and curiosity in the western Port Lincoln race compared to other races. The mating habits of rosellas are similar to those of rosellas.

Displaying males stand before females, square their wings to reveal their colored shoulders, and fan and move their tails rapidly from side to side. His head occasionally bobbles up and down as he chatters constantly. In courtship and later, when she is brooding, he also feeds her, but they don’t preen each other.

Having chosen the nesting hollow, the pair spends much time preparing it, lining it with decayed wood dust, and protecting it from other parrots. It is common for the female to leave the nest briefly to feed or be fed by the male early in the morning or late in the afternoon during incubation and the first few days of brooding. Initially, she is the only one to feed the young, but later both parents are responsible for feeding them.

Australian Ringnecks are also known as Mallee Ringnecks, Port Lincoln Parrots, Twenty-eight Parrots, Cloncurry Parrots, and Buln-Bulns. Ringnecks measure 350–380 mm in length, including a long, rounded tail.

Male: The green in general plumage. With or without a scarlet frontal band; head black or pale green with an olive-grey wreath around the hind crown; cheeks pale blue or green fringed with mid-blue A broad yellow collar or a narrow yellow-green collar around the hind neck A mid-green back, scapulars, and rump, or a blue-green back and scapulars contrasted with a paler green rump On the primary coverts, the shoulders are mid-green or deep blue, grading through yellowish green to pale bluish-green; the flight feathers are dusky, washed deep blue, grading to green on the inner secondaries; the underwing coverts are turquoise.

With broad yellow or narrow orange-yellow bands across the lower back and upper belly, throat, and breast deep green or pale green; abdomen, thighs, and crissum pale green. Blue-green tail feathers are uniformly present in the central pair. There are also broad pale blue tips on the outer dusky blue. There is a dark brown color to the eyes. The bill is a grayish bone-white color; the cere is a dark gray color. There is a dark gray color on the feet, toes, and claws.

Female: In black-headed races, female Ringnecks are barely duller and smaller than males; in green-headed races, the female Ringnecks are smaller and duller, with a more persistent white bar beneath the wings.

Immatures: much duller than females; heads are brownish-washed. Juvenile males of black-headed races lose the broad off-white stripe on the underwing of their flight feathers. There is a russet band on the front of the fledge of Northwestern Queensland races that disappears after a few months. When birds are 12–15 months old, they gain full adult plumage after a complete molt.

Downy Young is white-downed and buff-billed.

VOICE: Australian A ringneck contact call is a whistled kwink-kwink or kwink-kwink-kwink, which is often given in flight. An alarm call is an utterance of chuk, chuk, chuk, which may be uttered in flight or from a perch. A large southwestern parrot gives a strident tri-syllable call that sounds like twenty-eight, but with a higher pitch, hence its local name. Black-headed western parrots have a more guttural utterance. With varying degrees of animation, Ringneck parrots chatter while being fed and displayed.

Nesting and breeding: Through central and southern Australia, nesting and breeding take place between July and February. The best time for seeding in northwestern Queensland is between February and June, following the rainy season. An individual may have two broods in a year. Nests are hollows or holes in tree trunks or limbs, typically eucalypts.

Eggs: The Australian Ringneck lays two to six, usually four to five, white eggs that are 27–33 x 22–26 mm in size on a bed of decayed wood dust. The female’s incubation period is about 19–20 days. It takes about five weeks for the young to fledge.

DISTRIBUTION: Throughout southern Western Australia and central Australia, ringnecks are found in eucalypt woodlands, forests, mallee, and eucalypt-lined streams. A ringneck can be found in mallee habitats and drier eucalypt woodlands of South Australia and Victoria, as well as in the mallee forests of eastern New South Wales and southern Queensland. In the wooded uplands of northwestern Queensland, there is an outlier. Four races exist.

One, the Twenty-eight Parrot, occurs in the forests and woodlands of southwestern Australia, north and east to the wheat belt, where it intergrades with the inland black-headed race; it is large, with a black head, a red frontal band, mid-blue cheeks, a mid-green back, a rump, and deep green breasts that fade into a light green belly without an intervening yellow band.

Another, the Port Lincoln Parrot, ranges throughout Western Australia, north and west of the wheat heat belt to Pilbara and central Australia to the Eyre Peninsula and Georgina drainage in the east; medium-sized, with a plain black head, mid-blue cheeks, mid-green back and rump, and deep green breast separated from the pale green belly by a broad yellow band; intergrades with the eastern Mallee Ringneck through the Flinders Ranges.

In South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales, a third is found in mallee and stream-side eucalypt forests of the Murray-Darling basin, as well as in Queensland’s channel country and fringing ranges. Once on the frosty range, it is small, with a green head wreathed in olive-grey, a scarlet frontal band, green cheeks fringed in pale blue, a blue-green back butting against a pale green rump, and pale green breasts and belly separated by a narrow orange-yellow band.

Between the Gregory and McKinlay rivers in northwestern Queensland, the Cloncurry Parrot is almost completely isolated. With its pale tones, this race resembles both the Mallee Ringneck and Port Lincoln Ringneck in plumage patterns, the first having a broad neckband, plain front, and broad yellow belly band, and the second having crown markings, green cheeks, pale green breasts, contrasting rumps, and a small size.