ZSL London Zoo blue-crowned lorikeet (Vini australis)

[Chlidonias]

blue-crowned lorikeet from the Pacific, at London Zoo. Where did the zoo get the bird(s) from? How many do they have? Etc etc etc?
Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted): Blue-Crowned Lory at the London Zoo

 

[Writhedhornbill]

London zoo has 3.2 vini australis

 

[bongorob]

I don't know where they came from, but they've been there since at least 2003.

 

[gentle lemur]

They are one of the jewels of the ZSL's collection. I had great fun shooting photos of a very tame bird in the Blackburn Pavilion (I haven't had time to process and post my ZSL shots yet).
I think the original source of the birds may well have been San Diego, as I found this interesting article about the wonderful Vini lories recently (BTW they are not lorikeets ) www.loriinae.com/Vini%20Lories%20and%20Breeding%20the%20Blue-crowned%20Lory.pdf

Alan

 

[Chlidonias]

BTW they are not lorikeets

well "lory" and "lorikeet" are general terms for members of Loriinae (or Loriidae if you prefer to split them); lorikeet is generally used for those species that have long tails and is a corrupted version from "parakeet" (lory as compared to lorikeet, as in parrot as compared to parakeet), but equally can be used for any small species of lory whether it has a long or short tail. In Australia it is common to refer to ALL species as lories (eg, rainbow lory rather than rainbow lorikeet).

However I do usually use lory for the Vini species, it was just a slip on my part

 

[zoogiraffe]

This species is about in private hands in the U.K in quite large numbers.

 

[Chlidonias]

I never knew before that any of the Vini were anything but rare in captivity

 

[Writhedhornbill]

It's just vini australis that's common in captivity, vini peruviana is kept 0.1 at San diego and 1.1 in Walsrode. There may be a few in private hands throughout the world, but who knows. heard about a captive vini ultramarina in Japan...

 

[bongorob]

London's birds are from San Diego.