20 May 2011

Yesterday, we spent a day at the permitted areas of the Spit Nature Reserve. There were Neophema parrots everywhere but nothing was settled. We spent an enormous amount of time edging closer to birds only to have site contract vehicles come up behind us and pass by to flush everything. It seemed the elements were against us.

The sun was low, there was quite a bit of heat haze and it was hard to see subtle colour differences. We were too distant to hear calls and as the tide dropped, the one or two birds we initially saw at great distance and thought were “OBPs” (Orange-bellied Parrots) dropped into the saltmarsh. There they stayed. We are told there are now only 35 wild birds left. They are effectively extinct – it’s just a matter of time now.

Of the remaining birds, some were incredibly brightly-coloured, even having brilliant yellow and orange bellies – which I’ve always thought was unusual amongst Blue-winged Parrots but in actual fact, was quite common amongst the birds we saw. The grabs from video (below) were all taken at distances of about 50m and confirm initial suspicions that most of the birds were indeed Blue-wings. It was nice though, to have chance to look at a range of plumages.

Later in the day, we flushed some more parrots from the road-side opposite the Spit Nature Reserve and I am sure again, there was Orange-bellied Parrot amongst them. Returning briefly in the afternoon, there were six along the fenceline … again, nothing was settled feeding on the ground. For no more than a few seconds at a time, birds would hop up then drop down again.

The following frame is from the video showing what is clearly a Blue-winged Parrot (left) and another bird (right) that is plainer and with very little blue in the wing. It also seems to have some orange hue on the belly and mostly olive-coloured mantle but has a slightly more apple-green base colour to the body feathering than the Blue-winged Parrot. Nevertheless, it’s not the bright green one associates with Orange-bellied Parrots. This is like to be a juvenile Blue-winged Parrot, perhaps a female.

Both birds are juveniles as indicated by the broad pale fringes to the primary feathers (the ones that make up the tip of the wing). The bird on the right has fluffed up and the breast feathers are obscuring the blue panel in the wing. It just shows how potentially misleading these birds can be in such plumage.

Then seconds later, an Orange-bellied Parrot appeared (again for only a moment) – incidentally, this bird does not appear to sport a colour-band of any sort. Many OBPs are banded on their breeding grounds in Melaleuca off the southwest tip of Tasmania.

At this point, we were about 25m from the birds on the opposite side of Pt Wilson Road. They soon took off flying over our heads towards the spit.

The saltmarsh and farm environment around the Spit Nature Reserve at the moment is lush and quite different from how I’ve ever seen it in the ten years or so I’ve been here. The weed growth is extraordinary and there is a real ‘buzz’ about the place, with flocks of Zebra Finch and an abundance of other bush birds. There were even several Fairy Tern on rocks at the far end.

I wonder if this could be the first year in ages that Orange-bellied Parrots get a reprieve and find a reasonable abundance of food? It’s the lack of decent seed crop that’s caused a breeding collapse in the last few years. During the drought, more fresh water input to the saltmarsh was apparently needed … whilst the tide rose to our right, to our left were millions of gallons of freshwater in settlement ponds. One wonders whether this could be redirected at given times of year to encourage spring growth?

For now, it looks like there is plenty of habitat and it’s nice to have somewhere to sit and watch these extraordinary birds – the OBP population numbers perhaps less than 50 birds but that’s many more than other birds that have been brought ‘back from the brink’. Perhaps there is still some hope.

It was somewhat strange then to be driving back to Melbourne minutes after seeing OBP, passing through hundreds of millions of dollars of industrial and housing infrastructure and past the the Kraft factory “the Home of Vegemite”, an Australian icon. Vegemite sells 22 million jars a year in Australia alone. That’s about 100 million dollars-worth … imagine if we spent 1% of this on Orange-bellied Parrot winter habitat management? How much is a living, breathing Australian icon worth?

Instead, this year we are supposed to accept Orange-bellied Parrot will slip into extinction. Most of Melbourne will never get the chance to see one … why not? How difficult is it to build an affinity with such a beautiful bird minutes from a major city? Some nights, 1,500 people are turning up to see Little Penguins at St Kilda. This was as inevitable as birds (particularly penguins) are popular but it still came as a sudden surprise to Melbourne City.

There’s clearly an interest in our local birds and we’re not an exception. Mai Po wetlands in Hong Kong is visited by 40,000 people a year and it’s where the critically endangered Black-faced Spoonbills winter. They manage to easily limit disturbance at this site, despite the fact its sitting next to a city of 7 million people. Titchwell RSPB Reserve in the UK gets 100,000 visitors a year. On top of that, they’ve been able to use the site to reverse the decline to extinction of Marsh Harriers, Avocets, Bearded Reedlings and Eurasian Bittern.

The public are clearly interested in seeing birds … so why not foster the interest with some infrastructure? Sell access to the Spit Nature Reserve in return for Birds Australia membership. Put ten dollars aside from ten thousand members who buy annual site access (via membership), then budget a warden, open up the walking areas around the ponds, get someone to show people the birds and put in a hide or two. There’s talk of supplementary feeding OBPs on wintering grounds … so set up a feeding station at the spit with a place for people to watch from. Live stream the video to the city, promote and popularise the birds and start raising funds for the birds’ habitat management. This is after all, Melbourne’s best-kept-secret: wilderness and endangered species on the doorstep of a major city.

For the time being however, this was just another ordinary day, out watching a forsaken-to-extinction bird within the Metropolitan boundary of the 36th wealthiest city in the world.

Further Reading

• The walk of shame for Orange-bellied Parrot
• THE COUNTDOWN TO EXTINCTION CONTINUES WITH JUST 35 WILD BIRDS REMAINING, REMOVAL OF WILD BIRDS FOR CAPTIVE BREEDING AND AS YET, NO SIGN OF WINTER HABITAT MANAGEMENT. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/birds-in-the-hand-are-worth-a-species-future-20110522-1eyvh.html