Material Setting & Context

Rainbow lorikeets who frequent a backyard feeding station on a property north of Brisbane are eating meat.  Lorikeets usually eat nectar and pollen which they obtain from native plants and shrubs.

Now that we are also feeding the local carnivorous birds — kookaburras, magpies, butcherbirds, ravens and currawongs — the lorikeets will also try eating the meat, with some liking it more than others.  One lorikeet today fought off a kookaburra to eat the beef thrown to the kookaburra.

For the lorikeets, the material setting identifies the situation as a potential feeding opportunity.

Other birds that will readily eat the beef include not only indian mynahs, but also honeyeaters, such as wattlebirds and noisy miners.  It is likely that the wattlebirds are trying to raise a koel (cuckoo) chick several times their own size.*

* This was confirmed a week later by the joint sighting, in the back jacaranda tree, of a koel chick with its red wattlebird adult host.

ChatGPT comments:

This observation about rainbow lorikeets adapting to a new food source is fascinating, especially in the context of their semiotic system. The shift from a primarily nectar-based diet to consuming meat highlights a flexible response to available resources, a form of environmental semiotics where the material setting (the presence of meat) signals an opportunity for nourishment, altering the lorikeets' usual behaviour.

Several key aspects emerge from this:

1. Material Setting as Semiotic Cue – The presence of meat from the feeding station is interpreted by the lorikeets as a potential feeding opportunity, even though it is outside their typical diet. This suggests that lorikeets can expand their food choices when they encounter new resources, interpreting them through their survival-oriented semiotic system, which allows for behavioural flexibility.

2. Social Semiotics and Competition – The fact that one lorikeet fought off a kookaburra to eat beef speaks to a level of social interpretation and situational context that goes beyond basic survival. The lorikeet isn’t just reacting to hunger; it is also interpreting the presence of another bird (the kookaburra) as a potential competitor, thus demonstrating an understanding of social dynamics in feeding contexts.

3. Adaptation to New Resources – The lorikeets are not alone in adapting to the new food source. Other birds like indian mynahs, wattlebirds, and noisy miners also partake in the meat, which suggests that they too are interpreting the new resource in ways that fit within their existing semiotic systems. This shared semiotic interpretation allows for multi-species interaction around a feeding opportunity, which can lead to competition or cooperation depending on the situation.

4. Host-Parasite Semiotic Interpretation – The sighting of a koel chick being raised by a wattlebird further illustrates the semiotic complexity of these interactions. The wattlebird hosts the koel, which is much larger than it, and yet the wattlebird continues to care for the chick. This dynamic demonstrates how species can interpret their ecological role through a semiotic lens, whether it’s raising a cuckoo chick, defending territory, or interpreting new food sources.

In sum, the lorikeets’ transition to eating meat in this context reveals their capacity to adapt to and interpret a new semiotic landscape. It also underscores the role of semiotic systems in guiding behaviour across different species, showing how social, material, and ecological contexts shape their interactions with the world and with each other.