A group of four birdwatchers from Broome has photographed Australia's most mysterious bird, the night parrot, in Western Australia.

The sighting is all that more remarkable when you consider that the night parrot was thought to be extinct until three years ago, and that the photograph was taken in a patch of spinifex 2,000 kilometres from where the bird was first rediscovered in Western Queensland.

While the group described the parrot as a "fat budgerigar", the sighting was the equivalent of winning the bird watching lotto.

"I grew up knowing that the bird was extinct and didn't expect to ever see one in my life," says Adrian Boyle from Broome, part of the group that found the bird.

"I just knew it was a fairly small green and yellow parrot that used to live in deserts in spinifex countries that was sort of the unseeable, that it was the holy grail if you get to see one."

To find the bird, the team travelled to a habitat they identified by poring over detailed aerial maps, and camped out, listening for the calls of the largely nocturnal parrot.

"The night before, we actually heard the birds, which sounded very unusual to us actually. We couldn't sleep, we were just pondering the question: 'what was making this noise?'" says Nigel Jackett, a warden at the Broome Bird Observatory.

"There were quite a few of them, there was at least five or six of these things calling around us, so we didn't know what they were, but we saw the habitat was beautiful and thought that they could be night parrots."

In that moment, one of the members of the group, Bruce Greatwich, managed to take a photo of the south end of the northbound bird. It was definitely a night parrot.

The men's discovery is the first confirmed sighting of a night parrot in Western Australia for nearly a century. There have been other rumours of sightings throughout the 2000s, but no evidence accompanied them.

The sighting increases the known range of animals by thousands of kilometres, from the site in Western Queensland all the way across the Northern Territory to patch of rocky spinifex in Western Australia, the exact location of which is not being disclosed.

The birds are so difficult to spot, even in their known Queensland habitat, that even the chair of the Night Parrot Recovery Team, Allan Burbidge, hasn't even seen one.

"Not for lack of trying too," says Dr Burbidge, also a principal research scientist with the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife. "It's a species that is really hard to detect.

While it is unlikely that the bird consistently appears across the whole arid interior, this find gives scientists and birdwatchers hope that pockets of population live in areas relatively undisturbed by development, other human-caused habitat degradation or feral animals.

"Having a photograph now, being absolutely certain [about the birds' presence], hopefully our regulators will be able to use that," says Dr Burbidge.

"So if anyone's sceptical about they can say: 'We have definite evidence that they're in Western Australia and we really do need to survey adequately for them where there are development proposals.'" </s> Birdwatchers ‘elated’ after snapping photo of the endangered species in state’s arid interior in discovery that could significantly impact on mining developments

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A night parrot has been photographed in Western Australia, adding another twist to the mysterious history of the species that was presumed extinct until it was rediscovered in Queensland four years ago.

It is the first verified sighting of the bird in WA for almost 100 years and follows a history of unverified sightings, disbelieved reports and futile ecological surveys that rivals the hunt for the (presumably still) extinct Thylacine in Tasmania.

The discovery was made by a group of four friends from Broome who have dedicated the better part of seven years to locating the bird, examining detailed maps, trekking into likely habitats, and spending evenings in the state’s arid interior listening for unusual bird calls.

Night parrot population discovered in Queensland national park Read more

This month, two days into a trip to an undisclosed location near a salt lake somewhere in inland WA, they heard “some really interesting calls”.

“The calls to us were unfamiliar,” one of the group, Bruce Greatwich, told Guardian Australia. “We are quite experienced in these habitats so to hear something new was quite exciting.”

The calls were different to those recorded in the Queensland night parrot population, described by researchers in 2005 as “a ‘ding-ding’ call similar to that of a bell miner” followed by “a short frog-like ‘grieet’,” but were enough to indicate the bird might be present.

The next morning a night parrot darted out in front of one of the group, George Swann, while he was walking through spinifex looking for entirely different birds.

It was green and yellow with black barred feathers. The common description is of a big, dumpy budgerigar, about the same size as a rainbow lorikeet.

Swann, described by Greatwich as an “old-school birder”, called the others over.

“We were able to go down and re-find it and we had our cameras at the ready to get a photo,” Greatwich said.

Ordinarily, he added, they would never disturb a nocturnal bird in the daytime, “but in this instance we knew we had to get a photo”.

“We were elated, as excited as you could be,” he said. “To have something happen that we have worked towards for a long time and lots of people have tried to achieve … we were clearly very, very excited.”

Credit for the discovery is being shared between Swann, Greatwich, Adrian Boyle and Nigel Jackett.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Adrian Boyle, Nigel Jackett, George Swann and Bruce Greatwich had been searching for the night parrot in Western Australia for around seven years.

Boyle and Swann are expert consultants to Monash University organisation Research Ecology and Jackett is a warden at the Broome Bird Observatory. All four have experience working in the science and ecology fields but undertook the hunt for the parrot as a passion project, working the trip in around annual leave and family commitments.

Australian night parrot legend lives on but bird remains as elusive as ever Read more

Greatwich rattles off acknowledgements like an Academy Award winner, thanking their families for indulging the obsession, fellow WA birdwatchers Neil Hamilton, Tegan Douglas and Aneta Creighton, and ornithologist John Young, who discovered the night parrot population in western Queensland.

The known range of the parrot in Queensland, more than 2,000km away from WA, was expanded last year to include Diamantina national park in the states’s central west.

“It has been many years in the making,” Greatwich said. “It’s very humbling.”

The discovery could have a significant impact on mining development in parts of WA once presumed to be night parrot habitat.

“This is irrefutable evidence,” Rohan Clarke, head of Research Ecology, said. “We know that night parrots do occur in Western Australia now. Mining companies, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Parks and Water … they will have to place a lot more import into reported sightings now or in the future when they are making an assessment around potential developments or habitat destruction in the area.”

The night parrot group won’t say where they saw the bird, lest they be targeted by poachers, simply giving a broad description of “dry inland areas” that covers about a third of the state.

The last recorded sightings of the parrot in WA was in the Pilbara in 1912, when the only known specimen for more than 100 years was collected.

Breeding for their lives: the plight of orange-bellied parrot leaves a lump in the throat | Debbie Lustig Read more

There was also a possible night parrot nest discovered in the Pilbara in 1971, and in 2005 Fortescue Metals Group was required to consider a night parrot management plan for its Pilbara Iron Ore Hub, a large mine located halfway between Pannawonica and Tom Price.

Clarke said the evidence from Queensland, used by the WA parrot watchers to locate the bird, was that it nested in unburned spinifex, often alongside some kind of shelter, such as a salt lake, gypsum plain or rocky outcrop.

That means there could be patches of viable night parrots habitat anywhere from inland WA across the southern Northern Territory and northern South Australia to Queensland and north-west New South Wales. It also suggests parrots are likely to be glued to a tiny pocket of habitat and are extremely vulnerable to localised habitat destruction, Clarke said.

“It wouldn’t take much if there was a development in that area to have a significant impact,” he said. </s> Habitat of endangered night parrot placed under exclusion zone by Queensland Government

A rare Queensland parrot once thought extinct will be protected under new laws with an exclusion zone to keep bird watchers and poachers away.

The night parrot was considered extinct for more than 75 years but in 2013 it was rediscovered at a site that was kept secret, known as Pullen Pullen nature reserve in central western Queensland.

However, the State Government is concerned the location of the reserve has been compromised.

By enforcing an exclusion zone, heavy penalties can be served on anyone encroaching into the nature reserve without authorisation.

The area will be monitored by the same technology used to police poaching in Africa.

Researcher Steve Murphy said he and his partner Rachel Barr recently captured a chance encounter with a night parrot on camera and the rare bird's response might offer some insight into why it has become endangered.

"Remarkably it just froze, absolutely froze and allowed us to get within a metre or two of it," Dr Murphy said.

"If it's faced with a threat it's likely it just freezes and hopes that it's not detected."

He said they also found a night parrot nesting site.

"It was a really special moment because what it really told us was these birds are out there doing their bit to pull themselves back from the brink of extinction."

But a week later, they discovered the nest had been plundered.

"Over the next six days we watched that nest at night from a long distance using night vision," he said.

"We were able to see those birds come and go and we recorded sound and we gathered a heap of information.

"On the sixth day, we'd organised some tiny little video cameras to be shipped from Brisbane and we went into that nest one evening to install those cameras and that's when we discovered that the eggs had been eaten."

However, Dr Murphy said they had gathered a lot of critical information about the parrot.

"This new information is absolutely vital for looking after these species," he said.

"Without knowing that it's going into the floodplains or flying 40 kilometres at night, we simply can't manage the landscapes it lives in."

Bush Heritage Australia have installed solar-operated satellite cameras to protect the critical habitat.

Environment Minister Steven Miles said an interim conservation order would impose hefty fines for anybody caught on the night parrot reserve.

"We're very concerned that the disclosure of the location of the night parrot will lead to poachers and that's why we've taken this somewhat unprecedented step," he said.

"It's the first time the nature conservation laws have every been used in this way but such is the level of concern amongst our parks rangers, amongst the scientists that are working on this project, that we've taken this step.

"For an animal as rare as the night parrot, poaching and disturbance are two of the greatest threats and we're working to keep it secure in the wild.

"The Queensland Government is working with Bush Heritage Australia and a scientific committee to conserve this bird and its habitat, and all agree that an interim conservation order (ICO) is needed.

"The ICO means people without authority going onto the land would risk a $353,400 fine or two years' imprisonment." </s> Possible sightings of a Tasmanian Tiger in Queensland have prompted a search for the supposedly extinct species. It was thought that these creatures had died out about a century ago. Yet it looks like a couple of them are alive and well in the Land Down Under.

Termed a “thylacine”, the last specimen of this animal died in Hobart Zoo in 1936. About 2000 years ago, the Tasmanian Tiger went extinct in Australia. The only few members left alive eked out an existence in Tasmania.

Yet sightings of oversized dog-like animals that resemble neither dogs nor foxes have been made over the years. The skeptics are there though. They say that such a possibility is very unlikely.

Eyewitness accounts abound though and that too in the area known as Queensland. Two people have said that they possibly saw a thylacine in the region.

Seeing is believing and they gave detailed descriptions of these animals. One of these two was a national park employee and the other one was a casual camper in the region.

The sightings had been nocturnal ones. A spotlight held by one of the two individuals chanced upon four such creatures within a distance of 20 feet, according to The Guardian.

The descriptions show that these creatures were not dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs. They were unique and singular. The sightings are being kept strictly under wraps.

Nobody wanted the public to get all uptight over this possible sighting. The problem was that the eyewitnesses didn’t want to be labeled as crazy or mad. Many skeptics thought they were simply hallucinating.

Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, though said that if such a sighting was true, he would welcome it as proof of the fact that the Tasmanian Tiger was not extinct. More proof of sightings has been unearthed.

Cameras will soon be set up at various sites to provide proof of any such animals in the vicinity. The possibility still remains pretty low though. For one thing, we are not dealing with a mythical creature here. A thylacine is not exactly a medieval dragon.

The thylacine hunters have been further emboldened by the discovery of the night parrot earlier. They reason that if a parrot thought to have been wiped off the bush area in Australia happens to be alive and well, why can we not consider the Tasmanian Tiger to be extant too? </s> A renewed search for the Tasmanian tiger will officially begin in April on a remote peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia. The effort, spearheaded by two researchers from James Cook University, comes on the heels of credible eyewitness observations of animals in the region matching the long-extinct species' description.

“We have cross-checked the descriptions we received of eyeshine colour, body size and shape, animal behavior, and other attributes, and these are inconsistent with known attributes of other large-bodied species in north Queensland such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs,” Professor Bill Laurance said in a university news release.

A family of Tasmanian tigers as photographed at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart in 1910. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It was once widespread throughout the wetlands, forests, and grasslands of Australia, Tasmania and Papua New Guinea. Pressures from competing species like the invasive dingo, as well as a devastating cull to protect sheep by European settlers in the 19th century led to the population's collapse and subsequent extinction in 1936.

Over the ensuing decades, thousands of unsubstantiated reports have been filed from people claiming to have spotted a Tasmanian tiger. Legends of pockets of thylacine surviving in remote regions of Tasmania and Australia were so pervasive that rewards ranging from $100,000 to as much as $1.75 million were offered for the capture of a live animal.

So what is it about these two eyewitness reports from the Cape York Peninsula that have renewed scientific interest in the species? According to Laurance, who has spoken at length to both individuals, it's both their credibility and what they saw that's most intriguing.

“One of those observers was a long-time employee of the Queensland National Parks Service, and the other was a frequent camper and outdoorsman in north Queensland," he said. "All observations of putative thylacines to date have been at night, and in one case four animals were observed at close range — about 20 feet away — with a spotlight."

You can see rare footage, captured in 1933, of a Tasmanian tiger in captivity below.

The researchers, who plan to deploy 50 high-tech camera traps throughout the Cape, are keeping the locations of the sightings and upcoming survey a closely guarded secret. Regardless of whether or not any Tasmanian tigers are discovered, the search is expected to collect valuable information on local species.

"It is a low possibility that we’ll find thylacines," co-investigator Dr. Sandra Abell told 9News , "but we’ll certainly get lots of data on the predators in the area and that will help our studies in general." </s> PERTH, Australia – In a Police song come to life in an epic way, a Perth woman just made history with a find on a Western Australian beach.

ABC News Australia and the BBC report Tonya Illman was strolling on Wedge Island at the end of January when she spotted what she thought was garbage and decided to pick it up. Instead, it turned out to be what she called a “lovely old bottle,” and she yanked it out of the sand to bring home to display on her bookcase.

But when her son’s girlfriend saw what she thought was a cigarette inside and dumped it out, it turned out to be a damp piece of paper, rolled up and tied with string, which they took home and put in the oven for a few minutes to dry out.

When they finally unrolled it, they were shocked to see the message in German. Dated June 12, 1886, the note appeared to have been tossed off a German boat called the Paula.

Illman and her husband, Kym, brought the bottle to the Western Australian Museum. Maritime expert Ross Anderson confirmed the old-time gin bottle had been part of a German Naval Observatory experiment between 1864 and 1933, in which messages in bottles were thrown overboard to study ocean currents. And in the Paula’s shipping logs, “Incredibly, there was an entry for June 12, 1886, made by the captain, recording a drift bottle having been thrown overboard.”

That would make this the oldest message in a bottle at 132 years old; the previous oldest one, per Guinness, was 108 years old. Amazingly, the note was preserved despite the bottle having no cork and being partly filled with damp sand.

Anderson explains the bottle’s thick glass and narrow opening left the paper relatively unscathed. (This woman got a reply to her message in a bottle nearly a quarter-century later.) </s> This week, I learned that Sirocco – media superstar, comedy legend and one of the world’s rarest parrots - has gone missing. The young male kākāpō, who lives wild on a remote New Zealand island, evaded a recent search by scientists who wanted to capture him for a routine health check. Today is Sirocco’s 20th birthday – or “hatchday” to be precise – but no one can say for certain whether he is alive or dead. Is he an ex-parrot or is he just resting? Is he out there pining or has he passed on?

Despite this being the biggest parrot story since Snowball the cockatoo danced to the Backstreet Boys, Sirocco’s disappearance seems to have ruffled few feathers. The media has been slow to pick up on his disappearance, and the bureau responsible for policing the world’s parrots – Interpolly – has yet to file a “missing parrot report”. But why should we care that a big, green, dumpy parrot has gone Awol? Allow me to explain.

First and foremost, Sirocco is one of the rarest, most unusual parrots on the planet. Once so common they could be shaken from the boughs of New Zealand’s trees like apples, kākāpōs took a hammering after human settlers haphazardly introduced predatory non-native species such as stoats and rats. Large, flightless and tasty, kākāpōs were easy pickings. At their lowest ebb, in 1995, there were just 51 left alive. Now, thanks to an intensive recovery programme, there are 154. Sirocco is one of them.

Secondly, Sirocco is a comedy genius. The frisky fellow rocketed to fame when he tried to mate with the zoologist Mark Carwardine in a 2009 BBC wildlife documentary, prompting co-host Stephen Fry to comment, “You are being shagged by a rare parrot. When you have the chick, I want you to call it Stephen.” It was post-watershed TV gold: a moment of innocent parrot porn that has since titillated more than 7 million viewers on YouTube (beat that, Snowball).

Thirdly, Sirocco is a Kiwi national treasure (impressive since he’s not an actual Kiwi) whose life story bears all the hallmarks of a genuine rock’n’roll star.

There were the difficult formative years, when chick-hood illness saw him prised from the nest to be reared by strangers. A bold move that undoubtedly saved his life, it was the start of an unnatural addiction that continues to blight his life: Sirocco became hooked on humans.

As an adolescent on the remote Codfish Island, he eschewed female kākāpōs, preferring instead to serenade the researchers that stayed there with his booming, bass-heavy love song … night after night after night. When it became clear he would never father chicks of his own, conservationists dreamed up another way for him to help his species. Sirocco became New Zealand’s official “spokesbird for conservation”. Since then he’s visited the New Zealand parliament, and now alternates jet-setting around to meet his human fans, with periods of wild respite.

The good news is, I am certain that Sirocco is still alive. I know this because he’s still posting regular updates to his 13,600 followers on Twitter (@spokesbird) … which is ironic given that he can “boom”, “skraaark”, “ching” and make all manner of weird noises, but he can’t tweet. On Facebook, fans have speculated that he is having a midlife crisis – unlikely, as kākāpōs can live well past 70, making Sirocco a whippersnapper – or that he has gone to steal a birthday kiss from Mark Carwardine. The truth, however, may be more mundane. This is not a poly-gon: rather a polly-in-hiding.

When I spoke to Andrew Digby, science adviser for the Kākāpō Recovery Programme, he told me that Sirocco is probably alive and well on the same predator-free island where they left him, but has inadvertently “gone dark” because his radio transmitter has failed. All kākāpōs are fitted with them, but 5% of the electronic devices go on the blink each year. They hope to track him down later this year.

For me, it’s entirely in keeping with Sirocco’s hectic, superstar lifestyle that he should choose to take a break from the limelight. My prediction is that he’s taking some time out to recharge his creative juices before making a spectacular comeback next breeding season. In the meantime: happy birthday, Sirocco. </s> Eyewitness accounts of large, dog-like animals in state’s far north spur scientific hunt for thylacines, thought to have died out in 1936

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

“Plausible” possible sightings of a Tasmanian tiger in northern Queensland have prompted scientists to undertake a search for the species thought to have died out more than 80 years ago.

The last thylacine is thought to have died in Hobart zoo in 1936, and it is widely believed to have become extinct on mainland Australia at least 2,000 years ago.

But sightings of large, dog-like animals that are neither dingoes nor foxes have persisted over the decades, despite widespread scepticism.

Tasmanian tiger sightings: 'I represent 3,000 people who have been told they’re nuts' Read more

Recent eyewitness accounts of potential thylacines in far north Queensland have spurred scientists from James Cook University to launch a search for the animal long considered extinct.

Professor Bill Laurance said he had spoken at length to two people about animals they had seen in Cape York peninsula that could potentially be thylacines, and that they had given plausible and detailed descriptions.



One was a long-time employee of the Queensland National Parks Service and the other was a frequent camper in the north of the state.

Laurance said all the potential sightings to date had been at night. “In one case four animals were observed at close range – about 20 feet away – with a spotlight.”

Descriptions of their eyes, size, shape and behaviour were inconsistent with known attributes of other large species in north Queensland such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs.

The sightings were at two separate locations on Cape York peninsula, but the specifics were being kept confidential, said Laurance. “Everything is being handled with strict confidence.”



He said people who claimed to have seen a thylacine were “very nervous about relating their tales for fear of being branded kooks or fringe types”.

Richard Dawkins had tweeted hopefully of news of the study.

“Can it be true? Has Thylacinus been seen alive? And in mainland Australia not Tasmania? I so want it to be true.”

Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) Can it be true? https://t.co/4Qjv8jdzXm Has Thylacinus been seen alive? And in mainland Australia not Tasmania? I so want it to be true.

Sandra Abell, a researcher with James Cook University’s Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science who was leading the field survey, said they had been contacted with more possible sightings since their intentions were publicised.

She was in the process of deciding on sites for the more than 50 “camera traps” to be set up on Cape York peninsula, with the survey due to get under way when the dry season begins in April or May.



Abell said even if a thylacine was not detected, the survey would inform the centre’s understanding of the status of rare and endangered mammal species on the peninsula.

Many mammals, including the northern bettong, were at risk from introduced predators, she said.

“It is a low possibility that we’ll find thylacines, but we’ll certainly get lots of data on the predators in the area and that will help our studies in general.”

It was “not impossible” there were thylacines to be found, she said. “It’s not a mythical creature. A lot of the descriptions people give, it’s not a glimpse in the car headlights. People who say they’ve actually seen them can describe them in great detail, so it’s hard to say they’ve seen anything else.

“I’m not ruling it out at all, but to actually get them on camera will be incredibly lucky.”

Thylacine “truthers” active on Facebook were emboldened by the recent rediscovery of the night parrot in Western Australia, presumed extinct until 2013, and photographed this month.

“Maybe old stripey next?” commented one member of the Thylacine Awareness Group. </s> Oldest-known message in a bottle found on WA beach 132 years after being tossed overboard

Updated

A Perth family has made an extraordinary historical discovery after becoming bogged on a West Australian beach.

Tonya Illman was walking across sand dunes just north of Wedge Island, 180 kilometres north of Perth, when she noticed something sticking out of the sand.

"It just looked like a lovely old bottle, so I picked it up thinking it might look good in my bookcase," she said.

But Mrs Illman realised she had likely uncovered something far more special when out fell a damp, rolled up piece of paper tied with string.

"My son's girlfriend was the one who discovered the note when she went to tip the sand out," she said.

"We took it home and dried it out, and when we opened it we saw it was a printed form, in German, with very faint German handwriting on it."

The message was dated June 12, 1886, and said it had been thrown overboard from the German sailing barque Paula, 950km from the WA coast.

After conducting some of their own research online, the Illman family were convinced they had either made an historically significant discovery or fallen victims to an elaborate hoax.

German experiment in Dutch gin bottle

Between 1864 until 1933, thousands of bottles were thrown overboard from German ships, each containing a form on which the captain would write the date, the ship's coordinates and details about its route.

It was part of an experiment by the German Naval Observatory to better understand global ocean currents.

On the back, the messages asked the finder to write when and where the bottle had been found and return it, either to the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg or the nearest German Consulate.

The Illmans took their find to the Western Australian Museum, where assistant curator of maritime archaeology Ross Anderson conducted a series of investigations.

He determined it was a mid-to-late 19th-century Dutch gin bottle, and the form inside was written on cheaply-made 19th-century paper.

But more needed to be done to shore up the bottle's authenticity, and he contacted colleagues in the Netherlands and Germany for help.

Captain's journal confirms 'extraordinary find'

The colleagues compared handwriting samples from the form and the captain's entries in Paula's meteorological journal.

"Extraordinary finds need extraordinary evidence to support them," Dr Anderson said.

"Incredibly, there was an entry for June 12, 1886, made by the captain, recording a drift bottle having been thrown overboard.

"The date and the coordinates correspond exactly with those on the bottle message.

"The handwriting is identical in terms of cursive style, slant, font, spacing, stroke emphasis, capitalisation and numbering style."

Discovered 132 years after it was tossed overboard, it is the oldest-known message in a bottle in the world.

The second oldest was just over 108 years old.

Kym and Tonya Illman have loaned their find to the WA Museum to display for the next two years.

Topics: human-interest, history, history-education, oceans-and-reefs, perth-6000, lancelin-6044, cervantes-6511, germany, wa

First posted
The night parrot is confirmed sighted (and photographed) in Western Australia for first time in nearly 100 years.