AUSTRALIAN RING-NECK
Barnardius Barnardi Barnardi

This species is not so popular and most of people never herd about it. Australian Ring-neck is Australian parrot native to southeast part of this continent. It is 35 cm long, so it belongs to the medium large group. Because of their color, they should be on the first pages in ornithology books, but they are not. Unbelievably, there are no even TV reportages on this bird. Maybe the reason is that these birds are not common in voliers and breeder houses, and it seems like nobody really cares about this amazing bird species. In the wild they are contrast to the dry and cruel environment, they are the only thing that gives a bit of colors to their habitat. They live on rare, tall, thorny trees of acacia, which is their food, too. Most of the day these birds are sitting on their trees occupied by themselves, it seems like they are aware of their beauty.

The basic color is intensive green, with lots of shades. Forehead is red, while the part just above the beak is reddish brown. Crown and upper part of the nape are green. On the neck, they have thick yellow ring. The cheeks are blue. Mantle and back are dark blue, while the rump is green. Belly is green like turquoise. On the middle of the belly, there is golden ring that has red ends. Wings are about 17cm long. Wing coverts are green and in the middle, they are yellow. Upperparts are blue and inner parts are black. Tail is 17 to 19 cm long. Middle tail feathers are olive green wit a bit of blue shade. On the upper side, tail is dark blue with white ends. Inner part of the tail is bright blue. Iris is dark brown and the narrow ring around the eyes is grey. The beak is 2 cm long colored in grey almost white. This species have two subspecies, pale green bernard and cloncure bernard. Genetical mutations made in captivety are isabel, blue, yellow, albino and pale yellow. Female is smaller than male, and has duller colors. They got the name over the yellow ring around the neck.