Rob Heinsohn with male (left) and female (right) eclectus parrot nestlings. Photo by Rob Heinsohn.
The eclectus parrots of Cape York Peninsula have an unusual and gruesome habit, writes LEANNE O'ROURKES. As you climb above the oppressively humid rainforest of Cape York Peninsula, you feel the refreshing breeze in your face; birds and butterflies whiz past. You break above the canopy and realise that, suddenly, everything's below you. It's a privileged perspective that not many people will experience, but one that ANU professor Rob Heinsohn has spent much of the last 10 years admiring, perched on a wooden platform up to 30 metres above the ground, observing the mysterious eclectus parrot ( Eclectus roratus ) for months on end. "I was terribly scared of heights at first," he says. "But after the first season it has been replaced by the joy of tree climbing." The eclectus parrot is an anomaly of the animal kingdom, possessing features that defy evolutionary expectations. The males and females look so different from each other that for a long time people thought they were separate species.
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