Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot
Scientific Name – loriculus berylinus
Common Name – Gira Maliththa or Pol Girawa
It belongs to the order Psittaciaformes and the family Psittaciadae. This is a small parrot which is a resident endemic breeder in Sri Lanka. It is the size of a House Sparrow measuring only 13 cm long with a short tail. The adult is mainly green with a red crown and rump. The nape and back have on orange tint. The chin and throat are pale blue. The beak is red and the irises are white. Immature birds lack the orange hue to the back, have a duller rump, and have only a hint of orange on the crown. They have a faint blue throat, orange beaks and brown irises. It is less gregarious than some of its relatives, and is usually alone or in small groups outside the breeding season. Its flight is swift and direct, and the call is a sharp whistled twiwittwit, twitwitwit. It undergoes local movements, driven mainly by the availability of the fruit, seeds, buds and blossoms that make up its diet.
It belongs to the order Psittaciaformes and the family Psittaciadae. This is a small parrot which is a resident endemic breeder in Sri Lanka. It is the size of a House Sparrow measuring only 13 cm long with a short tail. The adult is mainly green with a red crown and rump. The nape and back have on orange tint. The chin and throat are pale blue. The beak is red and the irises are white. Immature birds lack the orange hue to the back, have a duller rump, and have only a hint of orange on the crown. They have a faint blue throat, orange beaks and brown irises. It is less gregarious than some of its relatives, and is usually alone or in small groups outside the breeding season. Its flight is swift and direct, and the call is a sharp whistled twiwittwit, twitwitwit. It undergoes local movements, driven mainly by the availability of the fruit, seeds, buds and blossoms that make up its diet.
It is a bird of open forest and strictly arboreal, never descending to the ground. Its breeding habits are highly remarkable. It nests in holes in trees, laying 2–3 white eggs. The lorikeet breeds in the first half of the year, and sometimes again in July-September. This brilliantly-colored little parrot is found everywhere in the hills up to 4,000 feet, and in the north-east monsoon it ascends a thousand feet higher; it also inhabits the low-country wet zone and parts of the dry zone to the south of the Northern Province. The Sri Lanka Hanging Parrot is featured in the 15 cents postal stamp and the new 1,000 rupee note. It is listed by the IUCN under Least Concerned.
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