Chattering Lory

1 Chattering Lory Breed Overview

The Chattering Lory (Lorius garrulus) has a striking appearance: a red body, dark red shoulders, and varying yellow feathers like a cape, with green thighs and wings. Like many lories, it feeds on pollen, nectar, and fruit.

Chinese name: Chattering Lory

Latin name: Lorius garrulus

Other names: Red Lory, Chattering Parrot

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Subphylum: Vertebrata

Class: Aves

Order: Psittaciformes

Family: Psittacidae

Subfamily: Loriinae

Tribe: Loriini

Genus: Lorius

Species: Chattering Lory

Subspecies: 3 subspecies

Distribution: Indonesia

Named by and year: Linnaeus, 1758

English name: Chattering Lory

English name: Yellow-backed Lory

Conservation status: IUCN Vulnerable

2 Physical Characteristics of the Chattering Lory

The Chattering Lory is mainly distributed in Indonesia. Its appearance is very striking, with bright plumage and lory-like habits, so its beak is longer than that of typical parrots.

The Chattering Lory is 30 cm long and weighs 180-250 g. The body is red, the shoulders dark red, and many birds have varying yellow cape-like feathers on the back; the thighs and wings are green; the bend of the wing and inner coverts are yellow, with a broad rose-red band across the inner flight feathers; the tail is red with green tips; the cere is gray, the beak orange-red, and the iris yellow-brown to orange-red. Young birds have darker beaks and irises and take 6 months to reach adult color.

3 Chattering Lory Living Environment

The Chattering Lory has a striking appearance and lory-like habits. Its body has a special digestive enzyme to break down food.

The Chattering Lory is common in its native range and one of the most common pet birds in Indonesian homes, but numbers have dropped sharply due to poaching. It is mostly seen in pairs and gives sharp, noisy calls in flight, possibly migrating seasonally, breeding around January. Caged birds are lively and noisy, adapt quickly to new environments and owners, and love bathing; they are aggressive toward other species and should not be mixed, but become robust once settled.

4 Chattering Lory Feeding Guidelines

In the wild the Chattering Lory feeds mainly on pollen, nectar, and fruit. Its special digestive enzyme helps break down food, but because it has no need to digest grain, its ability to handle hard items is relatively weaker than other parrots.

The Chattering Lory’s main foods are fruit, corn, nectar, and pollen; in captivity it can be fed coastal coconut flowers. If raised from a chick, like most lories it becomes a lively, playful, lovely pet and is among the better lories at mimicking sounds and human speech.