Ironically, with the current discussion of red goshawks and disclosing their
locations, this story has appeared in todays Courier Mail newspaper. The final
two paragraphs are devoted to the bird.
Birds in paradise
[News Ltd. The Courier-Mail, Rcvd:Aug 10,11:38:00 EDT]
Profile Name: fauna
By: John McCann
BRILLIANT shades of red and pink splash across the now quickly changing dawn
sky as naturalist Murray Hunt guides our small group of six eager
ornithologists to a thick clump of paperbarks by the edge of the lotus-covered
lagoon.
``Over to the right,'' Murray whispers to the five very excited middle-aged
Americans squatting next to me, ``there's three green pygmy geese.''
They raise their binoculars in unison, before smiling to each other and ticking
off yet another species in their quest for rare and uncommon birds.
Forty-five minutes pass and another seven new species are spotted before our
enthusiastic group decides to call it a morning and head back along the track
for breakfast at Lotus Bird Lodge.
On 177,000ha Violet Vale Station, in the southern part of Cape York Peninsula,
the lodge is undoubtedly one of the best places in Australia for seeing rare,
threatened and uncommon birds.
Managed by Phil and Jenney Buchanan, two of the most informative and friendly
people that you could hope to meet, Lotus Bird Lodge has become a Mecca for
ornithologists and nature lovers from around the world due to the large number
and variety of species you are likely to see there.
There is, however, one species in particular which attracts visitors to this
out-of-the-way destination -- the endangered golden-shouldered parrot.
Once fairly common on Cape York, there are probably fewer than 1500 of these
extremely beautiful parrots left in the wild, nearly all of them on a couple of
adjoining cattle station within an hour's drive of the lodge.
One of the main reasons for the golden-shouldered parrot's drastic fall in
numbers was illegal trapping for the overseas market, particularly the United
States and Europe, where the birds could fetch up to $5000 a pair. Also known
as anthill parrots due their habit of nesting in termite mounds, often less
than 1m from the ground, the parrot was easy prey for smugglers who only had to
wait for the the helpless birds to return to their nests.
These days, a lot more golden-shouldered parrots are breeding in captivity than
in the wild. Fortunately, their black-market value has dropped to about $50 a
pair, almost ending the illegal trade.
Biologists studying the parrots believe other factors are also contributing to
the species' decline.
These mainly have to do with environmental changes due to the way graziers
burn-off on the Cape. In most areas where the slow winter burn-offs occur, the
golden-shouldered parrot has almost disappeared. On the few stations near Lotus
Bird Lodge where the traditional summer burn-offs still occur, the parrot is
holding its own. This is because the burn helps regenerate ``firegrass'', the
seeds of which the parrot mainly feeds on.
At the same time, the fires retard the growth of saplings, which it has been
found are used by butcherbirds to launch raids on golden-shouldered nestlings.
Jabirus, bush stone-curlews, squatter pigeons, Australian bustards, star
finches, mangrove robins, red-backed button quail and the magnificent palm
cockatoo are also among the 220-plus species which can be seen during a two or
three-day stay.
If luck is running your way, you may even get a glimpse of the rare red
goshawk, Australia's most endangered bird of prey. Biologists estimate there
are probably fewer than 200 breeding pairs of red goshawks in the country.
The species inhabits well-timbered areas over the northern half of Australia.
No one is sure why their numbers have dropped to such critically low levels but
it probably has to do with habitat loss as each pair needs at least 200sq km of
relatively undisturbed timbered country.
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