ABC News: Night parrot sighting in WA shocks birdwatching world

[John Harris <>]

Thanks Alan. This is heartening news indeed but hardly something to ‘shock’ us! Excite us, yes, but after all the Night parrot was described first from a Western Australian specimen – hence its name occidentalis. Their habitat spans the vast spinifex plains especially where there is Triodia grass  - ie Western Queensland,  the Northern Territory, Western Australia and the north of South Australia. I would not be shocked if they were discovered in Western NSW, very excited but not shocked! 

I described my sighting of them in the 1960s north of the  the Barkly Tableland (NT) on this chatline two years ago. You can, I think, find it under night parrot or 13 Feb 2014. The Aboriginal men I was with called them Mirrlambing  with a hard ‘b’ - (Mirr-lam-bing). Mirr means to call out so the name means something like night calling bird. This name or a similar name can be found in the older bird literature which used to record Aboriginal names.

From: Alan Ford <>
Date: Thursday, 23 March 2017 at 12:29 PM
To: chatline <>
Subject: [canberrabirds] ABC News: Night parrot sighting in WA shocks birdwatching world

FYI

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-23/night-parrot-sighting-in-wa-shocks-birdwatching-world/8377624

 

A group of four birdwatchers from Broome has photographed Australia's most mysterious bird, the night parrot, in Western Australia.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

Alan

 

Message protected by MailGuard: e-mail anti-virus, anti-spam and content filtering.
http://www.mailguard.com.au/mg

Report this message as spam