Australia's 'Bunyip Bird' on the brink

Dubbed Australia's 'bunyip bird', the Australasian Bittern is among the nation's most endangered species, and they've taken a liking to rice crops.

A pilot study conducted last summer identified rice growers as custodians of what appears to be the largest population ever recorded.

Neil Bull from the Ricegrowers’ Association of Australia (RGA) said it was very encouraging to confirm a minimum of 70 individuals using rice crops during the 2012-13 season.

"Only a small proportion of rice crops were surveyed, so the actual number was likely to run well into the hundreds. It's now clear that the rice industry can play in a key role in the conservation of bitterns," Mr Bull said.

Bitterns Boom in Rice from BitternsBoomInRice on Vimeo.

Ecologist Matt Herring, who is continuing the bitterns in rice study this season, said there are some key questions to answer in order to help the birds.

"Now that we know rice crops are so important for bitterns, we need to get a more accurate population estimate so that we can monitor them, especially for birds that are breeding," he said.

"We want to get a better idea of what it is about rice crops that bitterns like most.

"Many rice farmers I've spoken to are chuffed to be supporting an endangered species and are keen to adopt bittern-friendly rice-growing guidelines where possible," Mr Herring said.

Andrew Silcocks from Birdlife Australia is encouraging rice farmers to report their sightings of bitterns.

"This is a very poorly-known species and it's a national conservation priority. The more we learn about bitterns, the better chance we'll have of boosting their numbers."

Sightings can be reported online via the Birdlife Australia website.

Read more at: http://www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/cropping/general-news/bitterns-sweet-returns/2682232.aspx

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

Night Parrot makes Smithsonian's Top 5

The Smithsonian has included Australia's Night Parrot in its list of the top 5 most mysterious bird species. Find out who else made the cut here.

Between 1912 and 1979, birders spotted this elusive species, native to the interior of Australia, exactly zero times—leading most scientists to believe it had gone extinct.

Since then, a tiny handful of sightings of the nocturnal, yellow-green bird have occurred, and experts now estimate that the population is somewhere between 50 and 250 mature individuals.

After the last verified sighting in November 2006, when park rangers in the state of Queensland turned up a decapitated specimen that had died after flying into a barbed-wire fence, the Australian government chose to keep the find temporarily secret while they searched for more night parrots, so as to avoid an influx of birders flooding the remote park in hopes of spotting one of the world’s rarest birds.

Search for Night Parrot continues

Night parrots were thought to be extinct for a time, however there have been a small number of sightings in recent years in south west Queensland, the far north of South Australia and the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Mike Griffiths has recently travelled to our region from Western Australia on a quest to film the endangered bird.

“It is highly likely that there are still night parrots in the area,” Mr Griffiths said.

“A few of the locals have relayed stories of sightings in the past.”

Night parrots are nocturnal, ground-dwelling birds.

They take to the air only when disturbed or in search of water.

They are a fairly small parrot that is a yellowish-green colour and with mottled dark brown, black and yellow.

Mr Griffiths’ aim was to get in touch with landholders who may know of night parrots.

He plans to then work with those people to set up motion triggered cameras to film or photograph the rare birds.

It’s Mr Griffiths’ passion and hobby to film unusual birds and small animals.

“People on the land know far more about local wildlife than they are given credit for,” he said.

“There is nothing more interesting than listening to their stories.” Mr Griffiths will again be in the area in September to check cameras and set up more observation sites.

If you think you have seen a night parrot or any rare and unusual fauna, you can have them recorded by contacting Mike Griffiths on: 0428 530 989 or the local regional Landcare facilitator Anne Holst on 02 6872 2144.

The location of these birds and animals can be kept confidential if preferred.

For any Landcare-related enquiries contact the regional Landcare facilitator for your area:

Anne Holst 6872 2144 (Western), Tanya Slack-Smith 6828 0121 (Namoi) or Danielle Littlewood 6840 7805 (Central West).

http://www.westernmagazine.com.au/news/local/news/general/extinct-night-parrot-seen-in-central-west/2625332.aspx

Backyard surprise: Jet-black kookaburras

Deborah Winfield's suburban Sydney backyard has become a haven for unusual dark birds - but she had no idea what they were or where they had come from.

"They looked like kookaburras but were covered in beautiful glossy black feathers so I got on the net and it turns out they are kookaburras," she told the Daily Telegraph this week.

Australian Museum naturalist Martyn Robinson said: "It's the result of a genetic mutation called hyper-melanism - an excess production of dark pigmentation and a similar, but opposite, mutation to albinism.

"Not a lot is known about them but it appears it might be more common in young kookaburras and that they might change back to almost normal colouration on their first moult."

And that's where the story of the visitors, who appeared two weeks ago, gets even more strange.

"The first black kookaburra was a young one and turned up with two normal-looking ones, then two adult black kookaburras started appearing as well," Ms Winfield said.

"Now the younger black bird is actually getting darker, not lighter, and it only appears and stays with the two older black ones, and we even have a fourth darker kookaburra, but not as dark as the others, turning up too."

It should be noted kookaburras are very territorial and all of the birds visiting Ms Winfield's backyard will likely be part of the same close family group.

Sydney owls falling out of the sky

Sydney's owls are in trouble!

Very large numbers have been coming in to care throughout the metropolitan area and no one is sure why. Is it a virus? Poisoning? Is it related to the mouse plague?

Most of these owls are very underweight, and are showing signs of significant debilitation.

If you see an owl in this condition call WIRES immediately on 13 000 WIRES.

Calling all birders - solve this avian conundrum!

Name That Bird!

CFZ Director Jon Downes has thrown down the challenge - name this Australian bird! 

Yes they're Lorikeets, but what sort? Some kind of strange hybrid? Birders, tell us all about it! And let the videographer know too!

How rat attack saved two NZ birds from extinction

A new book, Rat Island, documents the desperate rescue mission of two feathered NZ treasures - the flightless Kakapo and the tiny lesser-known Least Auklet, both island-dwelling birds being edged out by introduced species such as rats, weasels, stoats and ferrets - many of them introduced in the mid-1800s, ironically, to tackle the out-of-control rabbit population!


Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea, a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra, midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds, the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized, savaging the nesting birds by the thousands. Now, on this and hundreds of other remote islands around the world, a massive-and massively controversial-wildlife rescue mission is under way.

Islands, making up just 3 percent of Earth's landmass, harbor more than half of its endangered species. These fragile ecosystems, home to unique species that evolved in peaceful isolation, have been catastrophically disrupted by mainland predators-rats, cats, goats, and pigs ferried by humans to islands around the globe.

To save these endangered islanders, academic ecologists have teamed up with professional hunters and semiretired poachers in a radical act of conservation now bent on annihilating the invaders. Sharpshooters are sniping at goat herds from helicopters. Biological SWAT teams are blanketing mountainous isles with rat poison. 

Rat Island reveals a little-known and much-debated side of today's conservation movement, founded on a cruel-to-be-kind philosophy.

Touring exotic locales with a ragtag group of environmental fighters, William Stolzenburg delivers both perilous adventure and intimate portraits of human, beast, hero, and villain. And amid manifold threats to life on Earth, he reveals a new reason to hope.

An endangered Kakapo on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds.

Read this excellent review of Rat Island by Michael Scott at Plain Dealer.

A Least Auklet, the smallest species of Auk.

And watch this impressive display of hundreds of Least Auklets wheeling through the evening sky as they come home to roost, to get a sense of what could have been lost to us all forever:

Name that bird - backyard visitors

It's no secret that parts of Australia are experiencing dire flooding. Other parts of Australia, particularly along the eastern seaboard, are experiencing lots of rain which, in addition to boosting the population of frogs, mice and other small creatures has seen certain species of birds paying a visit.

Who can name this pair? They were spotted in the Blue Mountains far, we suspect, from home. We're thinking some species of native pigeon (male and female?), possibly harking from a rainforest area?