The Orange-bellied Parrot Year: February - On The Move

The Orange-bellied Parrot Year: February - On The Move

It's toward the end of summer but volunteers at Melaleuca continue giving OBPs supplemental food twice a day. 

They carefully measure OBP supplemental food each day throughout the summer monitoring period

Supplementary feeding assists with monitoring, promotes female breeding participation, and helps newly released captive-bred OBPs acclimatise to their new environment.

The amount of food provided at the feed tables varies depending on consumption rates, stage of the breeding cycle, when captive-bred birds are released, and when fledging occurs.

Orange-bellied Parrots, R. Bruce Richardson

This month and in March, adults move away from the breeding area in and around Melaleuca, 

beginning their migration to Victoria and South Australia.

Juveniles form small foraging flocks. They continue to explore their habitat and forage on the seeds and flowers of low vegetation in moorland and sedgeland plains. Important plants at this time of year are Lemon-scented Boronia and Tiny Flannel Flower.

The yellow-orange bill of the juveniles changes colour to dark grey by the time they are eight weeks old.

By late March the first adult OBPs have started to arrive on King Island and juveniles have started on their migration.

Volunteer Renee measuring OBP food. Photo: Sandra Henderson

 January - hatching

Volunteers are working on the summer monitoring program

The summer monitoring program at Melaleuca conducted by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Tasmania is in full swing.

Volunteers monitor supplementary feed tables for two hours in the morning and two hours in the late afternoon. They use spotting scopes to identify individual adult OBPs by their leg bands.

They also keep an eye on the health of OBPs by observing their feathers, behaviour and movement.

OBP eggs begin to hatch 21-24 days after laying

OBPs are breeding - mostly in nestboxes - in buttongrass plains around Melaleuca in South West Tasmania.

Newly hatched young have sparse off-white down and are blind for the first week.

Female OBPs continue to incubate for up to 10 days after hatching while the male feeds the female.

After this time, both parents feed their brood. Nestlings are banded by professionals in the OBP Recovery Program before they leave the nest. These bands are unique identifiers for each bird [which stay on their legs for life].