Review of the year 2012

OBPs on feed table, Melaleuca

The Orange-bellied Parrot year doesn't follow the calendar year; it can be said to begin in spring, when they arrive at their breeding grounds in Tasmania. It ends with the last survey of sites on the mainland in late winter. Nonetheless, some highlights of 2012 can still be outlined. 

The year saw less media attention on OBPs but a concerted campaign by Zoos Victoria helped raise awareness in novel ways. Love Your Locals highlights the plight of 20 south-east Australian vertebrates threatened with extinction, including the Orange-bellied Parrot. Via a website, educational activities, displays of painted, baby elephants, a mural and a tram, the message has slowly expanded.

Another expansion was of captive breeding facilities. Adelaide and Melbourne Zoos, Taroona government breeding facility and Healesville Sanctuary were augmented by Priam Parrot Breeding Centre and Halls Gap Zoo. Moonlit Sanctuary in Pearcedale also received birds, primarily for display. See August and September (below) for details.

January, 2012 began with 22 birds at Melaleuca. Five pairs occupied nest boxes and eventually produced 24 eggs, of which 19 fledged. Of those, 14 juveniles became independent. The minimum wild population presumed to leave Melaleuca by autumn was thus 36.

In captivity, birds breed at these facilities: Adelaide Zoo, Taroona government breeding facility and Healesville Sanctuary. Melbourne Zoo and Priam Parrot Breeding Centre had both been given birds towards the end of 2011, too late to begin breeding in 2011/12.

The following is a subjective list by the author.


January

January sees plenty of activity at Melaleuca. By late 2011, at least twenty-two birds had arrived - nine female, 12 male. Wildcare volunteers are feeding them sprouted canary seed twice a day at the feed table. 

Six are unbanded birds and 15, banded. 

February

Birds begin to migrate north, adults initially then juveniles.

A boat harbour development in Westernport Bay is deemed worthy of assessment under the Environment Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act, giving rise to 'frustration' for the developer. (The site was once used by OBPs although none have been seen since 1987.)
     Federal opposition politician and local member, Greg Hunt, refers to 'this imaginary parrot'. An environmental assessment is actually required as the harbour lies in the vicinity of a Ramsar site, that is, a wetland of international significance.

March

The Big Issue magazine publishes an article about the OBP in Issue 402, entitled 'Come Fly With Me'.

Birds continue to leave Melaleuca. 

Zoos Victoria commissions street art specialists Everfresh Studios to produce a graffiti mural in AC/DC Lane, Melbourne, highlighting its campaign to fight extinction. (In this video, an Orange-bellied Parrot appears at 2:30 minutes.)

April 

The first sighting of an OBP on passage to the mainland is made at Sea Elephant River, King Island, north-west of Tasmania.

On 11th April at Airey's Inlet, Victoria, Lindy Frost sees an OBP - during her morning tea! The first record for that site, it's also the first bird seen anywhere on the mainland, although not recorded as such until later.

Hedley Earl sees the first two recorded birds on 19 April, at the Western Treatment Plant, near Werribee, Victoria. 

The state government of Victoria cuts funding for public servants, including 10 threatened species officers.

May


Three OBPs take up residence at a well known site in the Western Treatment Plant (WTP). The OBP Recovery Team (OBPRT) asks for birders' cooperation and patience, organising for one access road to be temporarily closed.

The OBPRT meets in Adelaide. On the agenda: discussion of aspects of the recovery planning process and presentation of the full draft of the fifth recovery plan - now under review by government.

Bob Green, south-east South Australia Regional Coordinator, celebrates 12 years of work on the OBP.

June

OBPs on the mainland.

July

John Peter sights two OBPs at Kaarst wetlands near Torquay on July 21, the first record there since 1998.

Four (or possibly five) OBPs in total have been seen at the WTP. Another bird is seen at south-east South Australia and another in western Victoria, near Yambuk. 

August

A new facility receives Orange-bellied Parrots. Halls Gap Zoo, in western Victoria, takes delivery of five pairs to augment the OBP captive breeding program. 
     
208 birds announced in the captive flock.

September


Moonlit Sanctuary in Pearcedale, Westernport Bay, Victoria, receives seven older birds for display, to raise awareness and possibly, to breed. 

The Sunday Age publishes an article, 'A parrot so rare it may need to be captured to survive', which details some of the OBP recovery history in the past few years.

September survey turns up one OBP, across all sites in Victoria and South Australia.

Last winter sighting of an OBP on the mainland on 10 September, near Queenscliff.

Winter sightings total nine.

October

First sighting in Tasmania. An unbanded male OBP arrives at Melaleuca around 1 October, followed by more birds on 4th, 5th, 6th, 12th, 13/14th October. By 29/10, there are 15 birds - 8 males and 7 females.

A release aviary built to acclimatise captive-bred birds at Melaleuca, in preparation for a release.

Zoos Victoria and Yarra Trams launch a 'Love Your Locals' tram, with an OBP featured in the brightly-coloured artwork.

November

Plans for a 2012 release of captive-bred birds shelved. Factors influencing this decision: similar numbers of birds as 2011/12, roughly equal sex ratio, and uncertainties about possible different strains of Psittacine Beak & Feather Disease in captive and wild populations.

More arrivals bring the total of OBPs to 20: 11 males, 9 females.

7.30 Tasmania, the ABC TV current affairs program, films a segment at Melaleuca featuring Mark Holdsworth, Tasmanian coordinator, OBP recovery program. It screens 30/11.


December

Numbers at Melaleuca 20 with an unconfirmed extra, an unbanded male.

Proposal by Hydro Tasmania for a 200-turbine wind farm on King Island, a crucial stopover for OBPs on both northward and southward migration.

Priam Parrot Breeding Centre publishes unique photos showing candling of OBP eggs and a day-old chick.

Four nest boxes at Melaleuca reported occupied; several pairs seen mating at the feeding table at Melaleuca.

Melaleuca scene

Debbie Lustig

Copyright 2013. May not be reproduced without prior written permission.

Come Fly With Me

Come Fly With Me

The Orange-bellied Parrot only makes headlines for two ominous reasons: either the species is blamed for threatening coastal developments (most recently a marina in Western Port Bay, south of Melbourne) or is labelled as threatened; a bird flying rapidly towards extinction. Deep in southwest Tasmania, however, Debbie Lustig and other volunteers are trying to give these parrots a fighting chance.

The plants are low and shrubby on the buttongrass moorlands of Melaleuca, in southwest Tasmania. On the sedge (a grassy plant) there’s a summer show of small, delicate wildflowers: white tea-tree, pink ‘fairies’ aprons’, trigger plants and lilac clusters of flowering swamp melaleuca that give the place its name.

But these pretty plants are of scant interest to my fellow birdwatchers and me. Late last year, we visited Melaleuca, in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area, and kept watch on patches of eucalypts that sprout in the gullies. In many of those trees, two or three wooden nestboxes are nailed. And in some of those nestboxes lie the future of an entire species: Neophema chrysogaster, the orange-bellied parrot.

This summer was decisive for the critically endangered bird, which is only found in southern Australia. While 180 parrots are kept under tight security in breeding facilities (in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and NSW), in recent years the wild population has nosedived. We’re now facing a horrible prospect: extinction-in-the-wild by around 2015.

Does anyone catch a whiff of the Tasmanian Tiger story in this? In 1936, the last thylacine perished in captivity: a wild animal, caught, alone and caged in the Hobart Zoo. Orange-bellied parrots could end up as museum pieces, too.

The birds at Melaleuca now number a scant 34 and the wild total is almost certainly no more than 50. With only eight females presently nesting at Melaleuca, it remains to be seen whether successful breeding has taken place.

By February last year, 27 chicks had fledged, which was judged a breeding success. It was certainly more than double the output from the previous two years, when it’s believed not enough females attempted to breed.

It’s not clear why this occurs. Scientists refer to possible ‘inbreeding depression’, a condition in which the ability to survive and reproduce is reduced by the mating of closely related individuals. Or is it something to do with degraded mainland habitats, where they migrate for the winter? Or perhaps the recent years of severe drought?

Last winter, several parrots were seen 26 times on the mainland in Victoria, between Werribee and Queenscliff. With the drought now over, it was hoped they had crossed Bass Strait in good enough condition to breed once they reached Melaleuca. But even in favourable conditions, a 45g bird flying across Bass Strait twice a year is the equivalent of an ultra-marathon. Compounding the population’s steep decline was last year’s decision to remove 21 juveniles hatched in the wild. These were sentto breeding facilities in order to bolster the captive flock’s gene pool.

Scientists aim to increase this captive flock as quickly as possible. When it reaches 400, large numbers will be released at Melaleuca. Will this succeed? Will there be enough genetic variation to sustain the parrots? Will there even be any wild birds left? Much is at stake for the bird the former Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett, once dubbed a ‘trumped-up corella’.

***

For two weeks, I volunteered at Melaleuca. Twice daily, my colleagues and I sprinkled sprouted canary seed on a stainless steel table laid with rubber mats (which stopped seed blowing away and gave the birds a foothold). Reading their leg bands, we noted each arrival. Danger was all around for the sociable, buzzy creatures, with swooping raptors and currawongs in the sky, and tiger snakes on the ground. The table’s legs were smeared with grease to repel the latter, while the observation point itself had been moved, partly to avoid proximity to chick-eating currawongs.

We sat for two hours, morning and evening, in a flimsy tent in the middle of the windswept plain, peering through a telescope. South was the quartzite-studded hulk of the New Harbour Range; to the north, Mount Rugby’s jagged outline. And before us, up to eight at a time, the bright green, blue, orange, yellow, aqua and orange-bellied parrots shoved their beaks into piles of small yellow seed.

Most birds sported the coloured and lettered leg bands, which help trace their breeding and migration. (Six were unbanded – which raises the question of where they came from.) We got to know them individually, like pets: Yellow Blue D’s sapphire forehead was patchy on one side; Silver Red M turned up with a female and, unforgettably, fed her, regurgitating his own meal into her upturned beak. Another unbanded female looked tufty and bedraggled, beginning to moult after two months in her nest.

We listened intently. Long before they flew in, they called their distinctive, metallic ziiitttt! then perched near the table before alighting, momentarily confident of their safety. Every day, their arrow-shaped silhouettes zapped clear across the plain.

The weather in southwest Tasmania is legendary. A day that begins with ribbons of mist snaking low above the creeks and rosy skies turning the mountains soft blue can change in an hour to squall, rain or sleet. Quartzy paths become streams and the cut-peat walking tracks become knee-deep mud. So why would a bird choose this habitat to breed?

The answer lies in the vegetation. Plants like paper daisy and dozens of grasses and sedges provide a reliable summer diet. The birds feed near the ground and nest in the hollows of peppermint gums on the edge of the plains and in valleys surrounding Melaleuca. Also, since the 1980s, in wooden nestboxes. When hungry, a free feed awaits at the feeding table – maintained by anxious, hopeful volunteers like me – throughout the summer.

The Commonwealth, Victorian, South Australian and Tasmanian governments provide funding for orange-bellied parrot work. This year will see the release of a new five-year plan, in which scientists cost the work that’s needed. But since the first plan was produced in 1984, a proposed action-plan has never been fully funded. Without adequate funding, the team responsible for saving the orange-bellied parrot is unable to do its work properly. Moreover, the team’s members have other responsibilities; nobody works full-time on orange-bellied parrot conservation.

This bird doesn’t deserve to be blamed for being helped to stay alive, even if doing so means some developments are occasionally stalled. If the orange-bellied parrot disappears, another facet of what makes Australia unique will go with it.

Debbie Lustig administers ‘Save the Orange-bellied Parrot’ on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/savetheobp. The Wildcare ‘Save the Orange-bellied Parrot Fund’ will aid research and conservation: http://www.wildcaretas.org.au/programs?corporate_type_ID=9

Photograph of Melaleuca by Chris Tzaros; Orange-bellied Parrot photo by Debbie Lustig. This article first appeared in The Big Issue No 402 13-26 March 2012.