Just now, right after I put out the seed, these two galahs arrived. They downed seed like they hadn’t eaten for a week. Luckily, I’d only put out a little.

In my grapevine moth caterpiller post, Janet and I discussed how you can tell gender. Which set me thinking about the difference between a male and female galah. Nope, not a clue.  If I knew, I’ve forgotten.

Wikipedia says this about our common galah.

Galahs are about 35 cm (14 in) long and weigh 270–350 g. They have a pale grey to mid-grey back, a pale grey rump, a pink face and chest, and a light pink mobile crest. They have a bone-coloured beak and the bare skin of the eye rings is carunculated. They have grey legs. The genders appear similar, however generally adult birds differ in the colour of the irises; the male has very dark brown (almost black) irises, and the female has mid-brown or red irises. The colours of the juveniles are duller than the adults. Juveniles have greyish chests, crowns, and crests, and they have brown irises and whitish bare eye rings, which are not carunculated.

By JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Carunculated, I asked myself.   It’s the adjective of caruncle, as in a fleshy, naked outgrowth.  (Something else I’ve forgotten, more than likely!)

And red eyes on the female? Hmmm.

Image from Wikimedia:   A Female Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) displaying her crest outside her nest in Tasmania, Australia.

The next time these pretty birds are on my front fence, I’ll take note of their eyes.

Have a good day.  🙂