A good point, but as long as you’re thinking that carefully, consider another point (cue momma lorikeet warning “you don’t know where that’s been”): before it’s dead, meat tends to travel around a lot more than seeds do, so as a first order effect it picks up more parasites, and as a big second order effect successful parasites often specialize in hitching a ride on meat for at least part of their life cycle. So the meat itself probably won’t kill you, but the worms and eggs and spores and microorganisms in it might.

You’re right though that, upon further study, there are a number of seeds that have caloric contents on par with and even exceeding the meat/fat combination. I suppose I was lumping seeds in with grains mentally, and I apologize for the sloppy logic.

Speaking in evolutionary terms, if you take into account the way that the foods are found distributed in nature then it makes very good sense that the lorikeets would instinctually forego even seeds in favor of meat, especially since the meat will generally present alongside organs, which are a rich source of many vitamins and minerals.

“Seed” and “meat” are big sloppy categories, so I don’t know how to get a definitive answer for which has a higher energy density, but some early search hits for “jerky calories” and “wheat calories” suggest that on the order of 4 dietary calories per gram is typical for both grains and desiccated meat.

http://www.caloriecount.com/calories-beef-jerky-i19002

http://www.caloriecount.com/calories-wheat-flour-whole-grain-i20080

Meat can be a higher-value food than seeds in other ways, notably amino acids. And meat can be much higher-energy than various other stuff that hungry animals eat, like leaves. But seeds can be a pretty concentrated source of energy, and seeds were specifically mentioned in the article and are also strongly associated with my preconceptions about typical foods put out for birds, so I find it odd that you seem to have read the article as support of your idea about meat being a higher energy density food than seeds.

Also, I would find it weirdly narrowminded if someone was surprised at a typical bird — sparrow or cardinal or woodpecker or something — eating meat, because after all it’s common for many birds to grab insects when they can. But a bit of websearch suggests that lorikeets are strongly associated with flowers and nectar, enough that people might reasonably expect, and do authoritatively claim, that they are at least semispecialized.

http://www.gladesvillevet.com.au/pages/brochures/information-leaflets/information-leaflet.php?idArticle=9891 “Lorikeets are naturally nectar feeders. [...] unique brush-like tongue”

So rather as I would cut someone some slack for being surprised at a hummingbird going for meat even in the presence of its usual choices, I am prepared to cut Jones some slack for being surprised at lorikeets.

Truly a mystery for the ages!