Hi John,
Through the BA mainland habitat project and most of all the data collected by
hundreds of people over the years, I can tell you that absolutely other
neophema parrots are down in a number of critical areas of coastal
south-eastern Australia. Numbers in Victoria actually appear to be relatively
stable (although we haven't done any formal analysis on that) and there’s
actually been loads of water around in coastal wetlands in key areas like
south-west Victoria and Gippsland in the last couple of years. However coastal
neophemas are certainly suffering enormously in SA.
Overall neophema numbers (Blue-winged, Elegant, Rock Parrots and of course
OBPs) in the Coorong and Lower Lakes have absolutely plummeted in recent years
- see last years “Trumped-up Corella” newsletter for more details -
http://birdsaustralia.com.au/our-projects/orange-bellied-parrot-mainland-recovery.html.
We’re still crunching the data to get specifics, but given current salinity
levels and water loss, habitat for OBPs (and potentially other neophemas) in
the Coorong and Lower Lakes is effectively almost all gone. This is obviously a
significant part OBPs winter range - effectively the entire western extent.
The massive degradation of coastal saltmarsh habitat there is mainly due lack
of water into that system (as you say John) from the Murray-Darling Basin and
south-eastern SA where there are also massive drainage schemes. But the lack of
water is much more about water over-extraction than anything else - it’s
certainly exacerbated by drought and climate change - but as many have been
saying for many years, a hundred years of unsustainable water usage has it’s
consequences!
Re. you’re point about Blue-winged Parrots being more generalist though - they
certainly are - all the coastal neophemas in SE Australia have much wider
ranges and and exploit a much wider range of habitats, so they’re less likely
to suffer as much as OBPs, but to be honest we know virtually nothing about the
overall populations of Blue-winged, Elegant or Rock Parrots - as is the case
for the vast majority of Australian birds (noted by the BA media release -
http://birdsaustralia.com.au/images/stories/media/media_releases/OBP-MR-Apr2010.pdf
Cheers,
Glenn Ehmke
--- On Wed, 5/5/10, <> wrote:
From: <>
Subject: OBP's fate
To: "Birding-aus" <>
Received: Wednesday, 5 May, 2010, 2:49 PM
My mind has been
dwelling on the fate of the OBPs too.
As I understand Sean's article the idea is that (apart from the ongoing
destruction or modification of OBP winter feeding grounds in coastal Victoria)
the feeding areas that do remain have become degraded through inadequate
freshwater water inflows owing to drought.
Has this problem also affected Blue-winged Parrots? Are their numbers dropping?
It did occur to me that they move away from these areas in winter, also they
are not such salt-marsh specialists and feed on a wider range of grasses. I
hope so anyway.
cheers
John Leonard
On , Bill Moorhead <> wrote:
> Thanks Sean for putting the current fate of the OBP's top of mind where it
> belongs.
> As a kid in the 1970's I was lucky to see these fantastic little parrots when
> living in Victoria. It
wasn't until last year that Geoff Jones, Karen Blake , Jack and myself saw 5
at the WTP. We had made several trips in previous years without seeing OBP's
but meeting up with Chris T, Dean I and Sean D on previous trips. I understand
that we may have been the only birders to see OBP's there last year (?). It was
the most amazing birding experience......... A birding Top 10 anywhere in the
world that I have been....The contact call like a light bulb about to give up
the ghost; a tight little flock of neophemas dropping into their feeding
ground; taking what seemed like forever to locate them with binos and the sheer
exhilaration when we got them in the scope and confirmed their ID's. So 40
years had come and gone between sightings and I can honestly say that this
second time was the most satisfactory. Some of you may remember me ringing you
whilst I was looking at them for over an hour. I just had to tell others!
> Back here is Bundaberg
I am looking at a great photo of those 5 OBP's on my wall at work. Bundaberg
is the epicentre of our other parrot extinction in Australia (Paradise Parrot)
and the impending extinction of Coxen's race of Double-eyed Fig-Parrot. Jack
,myself and others have spend 100's of hours searching for the fig-parrot. It's
numbers are probably even lower than the 50 or so wild OBP's.
> Sean's kids and Jack's kids for that matter ,must have the same opportunity
> to experience what we saw last winter. So, if there is anything we, as the
> Australian birding community can do, we must do it. Climate change or not,
> this wild population has to be preserved at all costs.
> Cheers,
> Bill
> PS Just saw a Square-tailed Kite circle out the window as I typed this!
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