The Obi Lory, Eos squamata obiensis, still a rarity in aviculture?


Introduction
In 1995 Jim Taylor had already written something in the Lory Journal about the Obi Lory. In 1996 I wrote an article about the sub species of the Violet-necked Lory, Eos squamata, (the Obi Lory is one of them), the Obi Lory was then mentioned.
In this article I would like to write more extensively about this sub species and I will try to give an answer to the question introducing this article.

Description
Length: about 24cm
Weight: 100-120gram
The general opinion is that the Obi Lory is smaller than the more known Violet-necked Lory, Eos squamata riciniata. I did not notice any difference in size in my own birds as well as those belonging to others (the number is sufficient to be able to give a judgement). It is quite possible that if you do not see the birds together (most breeders do not keep both sub species), that the E. s. riciniata, because of its colour pattern looks a little bit larger. The average length of the wings and tail, as mentioned by J. Forshaw in 'Parrots of the World" does not give any reason to suggest that the Obi Lory is smaller. This sub species is mainly red. The abdomen and the under tail coverts are purple-blue. The edges of the primaries are black, the wing coverts are black, the upper mandible orange, the legs are grey and the iris orange-red.
Young birds have a big variation in the amount of blue, because of this they have a spotted appearance. The front can have a blue scaled look. The head is usually completely red. If the young are feather-plucked by their parents, even more blue is shown. This will only disappear after they moult.

Distribution and status
The Obi Lory occurs on one of the most northern islands of the Moluccas namely the island Obi. This sub species is not as common as first thought. Lambert suggests that the numbers are down to less than 7000 birds while first was thought that the numbers were far above 10000birds.

Status in aviculture
The Obi Lory has not been known in aviculture for very long. At the end of the eighties this sub species was imported in a limited number of countries. I understand that it still is a rather unknown bird because of the questions I regularly receive from visitors.
Now, 10 years after their introduction, it is time to have a closer look at how they fared. The first imports raised some questions straight away. There was no book to be found with good pictures of these birds nor was there any description about Obi Lories. Even "Parrots of the World" does not give a clear description.
The best explanation and description (however without a colour picture) is found in "The  Avifauna of Misool" written by Dr. G.F. Mees.
This scientific piece of work was published in 1965 by the Rijksmuseum of Natural History in Leiden, The Netherlands. The descriptions were done on the basis of skins available in this museum. I photographed most of these skins some years ago.

As far as we know the first birds were imported into the UK. Probably not long after Obi lories were imported into South Africa. Loro Parque in Tenerife also received their first pair around this time. In the USA only a very limited number were imported.
In the beginning the UK was the only country with a reasonable number of Obi Lories. There were a few on the continent but the numbers were very low.

The situation has changed somewhat at the moment. In the nineties some pairs of Obi Lories came from the UK to The Netherlands. The numbers were not low (a total of 5 pairs; most of them being young birds). However they were sufficient to get started.
I did not sit still at this time and I was able to import new blood lines from South Africa and Singapore. There were also some single birds recovered, like a hen in Germany who was kept as a pet in a cage. In this case I have send a cock to Germany. This pair raised 5 young before the hen died unfortunately. It looks like the numbers in the UK went down. This is not because of the 5 pairs who were sent to The Netherlands some years ago, but the general interest declined. At the moment it looks like it has stabilized. Not that long ago a mature Obi Lory was sent back to the UK to form a pair.

All in all there are a reasonable number of good breeding pairs in The Netherlands. They all originated with help of the birds I bred added with new blood lines from other countries. The interest was reasonable large, so it was not difficult to spread the numbers over different breeders. This way the risk of diseases wiping out this small stock is limited.
The Obi Lory is still rare in Germany and also in the rest of Europe this sub species is only occasionally seen. There are a few pairs in Belgium as well as in Denmark. In Italy and France there are only limited numbers. In South Africa the Obi Lory is present in reasonable numbers. According to Jim Taylor (Canada) the numbers in North America are still very low, with very little breeding pairs and an oversupply of cocks.

Breeding
Breeding of course is no different from that of the average lory. If everything goes well they will lay their first egg at the age of just 1½ years. However it usually takes two years before they start breeding. Incubation is about 25 days. The young chicks are covered with long white down and they usually weigh just 5 grams. They fledge after about 60 days. The food is no different from that of the average lory. The breeding pairs I have as well as the breeding pairs of several other breeders are in general reasonable productive. Comparetively this lory is no harder to breed than the normal Red Lory, Eos bornea.

I had my first breeding result in 1993. The pair concerned was very productive, however the number of males was much bigger than that of the females. I have another two breeding pairs that produced young regularly. Also my first generation of young showed good results with other breeders. As mentioned before, the young birds were subject to a careful breeding program with the cooperation of breeders from other countries to avoid inbreeding. This proves once more that cooperation on an international level is indispensable.

Conclusion
The number of Obi Lories in aviculture is still so low that cooperation is a must. Fortunately all the stock of which I know of is pure bred. Also the numbers are sufficient to be reasonable optimistic about the future.
As this is a bird with a beautiful colour and a nice size I think this bird is attractive to a lot of breeders.