Monday, 17 March 2025
Brighten up your week with 5 good news stories from the world of Australian birds and bird conservation.
Orange-bellied Parrots are one of only three migratory species of parrots. Each autumn, these small and remarkable parrots leave their breeding grounds in south-western Tasmania to make the long and dangerous journey across Bass Strait – travelling more than 1,000 kilometres to spend the winter in coastal Victoria and South Australia.
Last year, 21 Orange-bellied Parrots were recorded on the mainland in the highest count in a decade.
2024 also saw a record-breaking summer breeding season, with 92 birds returning to Melaleuca and 105 nestlings – the highest count since monitoring began in 1993.
Now, 28 captive-bred juvenile Orange-bellied Parrots have been released into the wild to help boost their population – ahead of what experts predict will be the biggest winter migration since conservation efforts began three decades ago.
In 2016, this Critically Endangered species was teetering on the edge of extinction when their numbers plunged to just 17 birds – but today, their population is slowly increasing thanks to ongoing conservation and captive-breeding efforts.
In January, ecologist Dr Tim Henderson was conducting routine fieldwork at Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary on Ngalia Warlpiri and Luritja Country, west of Alice Springs, when he spotted a large, unusual looking bird of prey flying overhead. When he quickly snapped a few photos of it, little did he realise he’d just captured the first photographs of an Endangered Red Goshawk ever taken in Central Australia.
Dr Henderson sent the photos to BirdLife Australia’s Director of Terrestrial Birds and raptor expert Dr Richard Seaton, who confirmed that it was indeed Australia’s rarest bird of prey, a Red Goshawk. Remarkably, this chance encounter was the first confirmed sighting of the species in Central Australia since a handful of records from the mid-1990s.
This bird was likely a juvenile, according to BirdLife Australia’s Red Goshawk Project Coordinator Chris MacColl – whose research has revealed that young birds can travel incredible distances after leaving the nest.
Alongside Chris’ research, this remarkable sighting means we’re one step closer to solving the mysteries of their movements – and understanding how best to protect one of Australia’s rarest raptors.
The nocturnal, ground-dwelling Night Parrot is one of the world’s rarest and most elusive birds.
Feared extinct for a century, this mysterious species was rediscovered in western Queensland in 2013.
In September 2024, a team of Ngururrpa Rangers and scientists detected a stronghold of up to 50 Night Parrots – the largest known population – in the Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area in Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert.
Here, among the dense spinifex, the Rangers found a Night Parrot breeding area and series of abandoned tunnels.
Until then, only a single Night Parrot egg was known to science – but inside the tunnels, the team discovered a single, white egg: the second to ever be collected. Although it was infertile, this extraordinary find could help scientists learn more about this cryptic and Critically Endangered species – and is a promising sign that the once-thought-extinct Night Parrot’s population could be on the road to recovery.
Few people have ever heard of the Critically Endangered Plains-wanderer, let alone seen one. This small and secretive bird is so unusual that it’s the only species in its entire family – making it as taxonomically unique as the platypus.
Found only in the arid grasslands of south-eastern Australia, Plains-wanderers are known as a “Goldilocks” species for their very specific habitat requirements: they need grass cover that isn’t too dense or too sparse.
But for the first time in over 30 years, these notoriously elusive birds were found living in Melbourne’s west – thanks to audio recorders and Artificial Intelligence.
Zoos Victoria installed 35 audio recorders across nine properties with suitable habitat to listen for the birds’ distinctive “ooming” call. After using AI to help sort through tens of thousands of hours of recordings, the team successfully identified their calls at two sites on private and public land – in a discovery likened to “finding gold”.
Less than 1% of Victoria’s native grasslands remain intact today, and with fewer than 1,000 Plains-wanderers left in the wild, this important research will help identify and protect remaining populations of this Critically Endangered species.
Flightless and restricted to a tiny volcanic island, the odds had always been stacked against the Lord Howe Woodhen. Hunted to the brink of extinction by sailors, settlers, pigs and cats, by 1980 it was one of Australia’s rarest birds, with just eight pairs remaining.
Over time, captive breeding efforts and the removal of feral animals helped boost the Lord Howe Woodhen population to over 200 birds. And from 2019, a large-scale rodent control project eradicated the hundreds of thousands of rodents that were wreaking havoc on the island’s fragile ecosystems and inhabitants – and gave the Lord Howe Woodhen a second chance.
Without rodents eating their eggs, their numbers skyrocketed. The latest annual survey of their population (conducted between 18 November and 6 December 2024) recorded a staggering 1,638 Lord Howe Woodhens on the island – a testament to successful pest control efforts and the extraordinary resilience of these plucky, charismatic birds.
Twenty-one Orange-bellied Parrots have been recorded on mainland Australia in 2024, in the highest count in a decade.
In the Kimberley, Nguruupa Rangers have discovered the second ever Night Parrot egg to be collected.
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