Australian Birdkeeper – June-July 2018

J GRIFFITH

the Australian Museum in Sydney, wrote,

‘Though a common species in eastern

Indonesia, New Guinea and the Solomon

Islands to Vanuatu and several other

South Pacifi c islands, the Blue-faced Finch

Erythrura trichroa is a bird of scattered

and enigmatic occurrence in Australia.

Until the last few years, there have been no

more than 12 records of this species in the

country’.

TAXONOMY

Parrot fi nches, together with other

popular avicultural species, including

nuns, mannikins, waxbills, fi refi nches,

and Australian grassfi nches all belong to

the family Estrildidae and are generally

referred to as fi nches or estrildids.

Joseph Forshaw, one of Australia’s most

experienced ornithologists said, ‘The genus

Erythrura is widely distributed in South-

East Asia, the Indonesian Archipelago,

New Guinea, northern Australia and

islands in the South Pacifi c Ocean from the

Caroline Islands east to Samoa’ (2012).

The discovery of the fi rst of the 11

recognised parrot fi nch species, the Pin-

tailed Parrot Finch Erythrura prasina,

was described in 1788 by the Swedish

naturalist Anders Sparrman. This was

followed by an enormous span of over

170 years before the most recent parrot

fi nch discovery, the Katanglad Erythrura

coloria, which was found on ‘the remote

slopes of Mount Katanglad in the

Philippine island of Mindanao’ and named

in 1961.

SUBSPECIES

There are 10 subspecies of the Blue-faced

Parrot Finch that vary in both size and

richness of colour. Without doubt several

races have been interbred in aviculture,

with many breeders perhaps not aware

AUTHOR GRAEME HYDE

that the Blue-faced Parrot Finch they have

just bought or bred is a mixture of more

than just one subspecies. Russell Kingston

summarised: ‘I have long believed the

aviary specimens in Australia are not the

nominate form which has, as part of its

natural distribution, the eastern side of

Cape York Peninsula. Those that I have

examined in Australia are brighter in

colouration and match very closely

E. t. clara, from the Caroline Islands’.

DESCRIPTION

The Blue-faced is an attractive fi nch that

shows at its best in good sunlight, with

its iridescent grass-green body colour

contrasting with the blue face and throat,

scarlet rump and upper tail coverts and

black bill. It measures approximately

11–12cm in length.

Sexing

Sexing can be diffi cult for the

inexperienced aviculturist as the sexes are

almost monomorphic. However, the Blue-

faced Parrot Finch can be sexed. The most

obvious difference is the face. A mature

male has a more extensive and brighter

face than a mature adult female. The blue

face mask of the male also extends further

back over the forehead and around the

eyes. Plumage of immature birds varies.

As Russell Kingston stated, ‘Immature

birds are diffi cult to sex visually, apart

from the male’s call. Only the male of the

species has the high-pitched prolonged

trill, while the female has a shorter, less

intense call’.

WILD EXPERIENCES

Early in 1996 Len Robinson, of Melbourne,

a well-known member of the Avicultural

Society of Australia and a widely

experienced ornithologist and former

THE AUSTRALIAN SUBSPECIES of
the Blue-faced Parrot Finch is confi ned
to small tracts of tropical rainforest and
foothills on the eastern side of Cape
York Peninsula, in far north Queensland.
They enjoy fossicking in grasslands at
the fringe of rainforests and vegetation
where (with a degree of luck) they can be
sighted in clearings and on tracks, such
as old logging tracks and at the edge of
grasslands. They have been recorded as
feeding on seeds of casuarinas and grasses.
Although known for several decades as the
Blue-faced Finch, present-day avicultural,
ornithological and general literature uses
the term Blue-faced Parrot Finch.

FIRST SIGHTINGS AND STATUS
Heinrich von Kittlitz, a German artist,
explorer and naturalist discovered the
Blue-faced Parrot Finch on Ualan (Kusaie)
Island in the Caroline Islands, north-
east of New Guinea in 1835. He named
it Fringilla trichroa. It has since been
placed in the Erythrura genus and is now
E. trichroa. Kittlitz described its three
colours as a ‘beautiful parrot-green’ body,
an ‘ultra-marine blue’ face and a ‘rusty
blood-red’ tail.
The fi rst apparent sighting of the
Australian subspecies of the Blue-faced
Parrot Finch was ‘by Robert Grant on
Double Island, about 20 miles north of
Cairns, Queensland, on 4 June 1889’
(Cayley 1932). A party comprising Robert
Grant and three others reportedly visited
Double Island to shoot scrub turkeys
but when Grant saw a fl ock of fi nches fl y
into a tree, he fi red his shotgun killing
one, with another ‘nearly blown to
pieces’! The badly damaged specimen has
apparently disappeared.
In 1986 in Birds of the Australian
Rainforests, Walter Boles, ornithologist at

The Blue-faced

Parrot Finch

J GR

IFFIT

H

W REMINGTON

Blue-faced Parrot

Finch in the wild