So, I met a bird

 I dropped my mother off for an appointment near a park today, and my grand plan was to sit in the park and read through some documents while I was waiting to pick her up again.

This park is the oldest park in the city, and for many decades it has had an avery in it. Not always the same avery, and for a while now the avery I remember from my childhood has been semi-abandoned. The plants are still there, but the birds have been gone for a while. There have been signs saying they were "planning what to do with the avery" for a while.

Well, there is now a new avery. They ripped out the rose garden and put it there. The last time I visited this park there were signs saying they were "planning what to do with the rose garden", so maybe they're going to tear down the old avery complex and put a new rose garden there. Who knows.

I suppose the garden curators do.

Anyway, two things struck me about this new avery. One was the sign on the side saying it had been constructed in 2019. Now, my memory of this year is hazy at best (to be honest, my memory of any year is hazy at best) but I would have sworn I visited this park earlier in 2020, and there wasn't an avery here then. But maybe it really has been over a year since I last came during daylight hours (I went to a play in that park one night a few months ago that was staged on the opposite side of the gardens to the avery, so I wouldn't have noticed it then).

The second thing that struck me was the mystery bird in the lorikeet enclosure. This fancy new avery had three enclosures with native Australian parrot species in each enclosure. One held cockatiels and galahs (they each had signs on the side of the enclosure), another held a sulpher crested cockatoo and a long-billed corrella* (also listed on the side of the enclosure), and the biggest one held blue mountain lorikeets, according to the signage, and nothing else.

Except there was something else in the enclosure. Something that definitely wasn't a blue mountain lorikeet. Something like this:

Image by JJ Harrison, from Wikipedia

If you haven't seen a blue mountain lorikeet before, I assure you they do not look like that.

While I was trying to find out what this bird was, I noticed a giant spider in the same corner of the enclosure the bird was sitting in, and I walked closer to admire the spider. It was one of those massive orb-weavers that eat large insects and small birds, and I spoke to the spider:

"You are magnificent, aren't you?"

I don't know if the bird thought I was talking to it, or it noticed I was talking about the spider and wanted to engage in a conversation with someone who wasn't one of those idiot screetchy lorikeets, but it started chattering away to me.

We had a good natter for a few minutes, and I found myself saying I would happily take it home to have the run of my house, if I could. It seemed quite interested in this offer, and the tone of the conversation actually shifted slightly. (This is pretty much how I got my cat, actually - she engaged me in a conversation and I thought "Well, this cat seems pretty cool"). But then I mentioned that my house is not as light and airy as the avery and I probably wouldn't be allowed to take any of the birds home anyway, and the bird lost interest in me and went to attack the sprinkler system.

Still, it was fun to actually meet a bird at an avery and have a bit of a conversation. Most of the time you just get accosted by bored cockatoos who are driven half mad by humans who can't provide much entertainment beyond bad cockatoo impersonations.

I found out later on that this beautiful creature is a crimson rosella. You would think I would recognise it from the side of the tomato sauce bottle I've been using for years,**,*** but I didn't. It really has the most lovely plumage - especially on its wings. If you ever get the chance to chat to one, you should.

*These birds look vaguely like a zombi galah. They're kind of cadaverish.

** Rosella is a brand of condiments in Australia. They have a rosella in their logo, which is on the side of all sorts of bottles and jars in my cupboard.

*** Update! The Rosella condiments have an eastern rosella as their logo, not a crimson rosella, so I feel less dopey about not recognising it now.