Secrecy shrouds world's most 'mysterious' bird

Some good discussion is happening over at The Conversation's website about the Night Parrot - the short answer, of course, is for its own protection!

The Night Parrot has been called the “world’s most mysterious bird”. First discovered in 1845, it was rarely seen alive for most of the next hundred and seventy years, but it has been rediscovered in 2013 by Queensland naturalist John Young.

The rediscovery has been shrouded in secrecy; photo and video evidence of the parrot was presented at an invitation-only viewing, and the Queensland government hasn’t been told the location of the parrot. So, why all the secrecy?

In 2013, Queensland naturalist John Young found what he thinks might be two pairs of Night Parrots, and, to top it off, a nest with three nestlings. Young recently presented a select group of experts with photographic and video evidence of Night Parrots from May 2013, confirming that these were indeed Night Parrots.

Young also made recordings of the parrot’s vocalisations, which he used to draw the birds close enough to photograph.

Young is keeping the Night Parrots’ western Queensland location secret for now. The fragile environments at the locality, if revealed, could be damaged by well-meaning but perhaps over-enthusiastic birdwatchers. The birds appear to have recently bred, and even relatively small numbers of people could have a serious impact. Disturbance could also interfere with research.

There is also the ongoing threat of illegal bird trade. Secrecy at least provides some restraint on this unscrupulous activity.

Read more at: http://theconversation.com/found-worlds-most-mysterious-bird-but-why-all-the-secrecy-18000

Night Parrot not extinct - proof emerges in Queensland!

The rare Australian Night Parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) has been caught - on camera, that is - by a Queensland wildlife photographer.

We have posted numerous stories on this blog over the years about the nocturnal ground-dwelling bird (that some have unkindly described as a fat budgie), which had seemingly vanished from its outback Australian haunts, the spinifex grasses of the dry interior of the country.

Wildlife photographer John Young has spent more than 17,000 hours out in the field and notched up 15 years of searching, and says he has finally captured several photos and a 17-second video of the bird in western Queensland.

Last week he presented his evidence to more than 100 excited bird enthusiasts at the Queensland Museum under a cloak of secrecy, forbidding photographs and video. A commercial deal with a media company means Mr Young cannot publicly distribute the pictures.

Australian Birdlife Magazine editor Sean Dooley hailed the revelation as an extraordinary development.

"The night parrot is the Holy Grail of world bird-watching, it's probably the hardest bird in the world to see," he told the ABC.

Mr Young will not say exactly where the photos were taken in the hope it will protect the bird from poachers.

Watch the ABC's interview with Mr Young here.

Night Parrot stories collected for documentary

Ecologist Julian Reid and filmmaker Rob Nugent from the Australian National University are travelling Outback Australia in search of evidence of the elusive Night Parrot for their documentary.

Only a handful of sightings have been recorded in the last century.

"I like the mystery of the bird, how it lives only an inferred existence," Rob Nugent recently told ABC Radio.

"It's story also speaks to extinctions, the idea that this animal may or may not exist, and we live in an age when loss is accepted."

In 2012 the night parrot was declared one of the world's five most mysterious birds by the Smithsonian Institute in the United States.

The last specimen to be handed in, a decapitated bird, was found in 2006 by a grader driver in the Diamantina Lakes National Park.

You can read about their trip and share your own stories on their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/NightParrotStories