After much planning my trip to Australia to see Princess Parrot has come to
completion.
I joined with Greg Little of Newcastle, NSW and traveled to Jupiter Well, 1000
KM west of Alice Springs. While the expedition itself took 11 days we remained
in the Jupiter Well area searching for Princess for a total of 4 full days.
To say that this lifelong dream of a trip was a success would be an
understatement! Thanks to the expert guidance of Greg and some patient
searching we not only saw Princess but my life dream of filming this rare
species came true as well. Intimately familiar with it as an aviary bird I
honestly held out little hope I would ever see it in the wild.
This all came to fruition on September 5th with our first sighting of
approximately 10 individuals rapidly passing by within a mere 20 meters to our
left at aproximately 9 AM. What struck me was the uniformity of coordinated
flight and field marks such as pink throat and long tail, immediately evident.
Having studied my own birds in my aviary in Canada extensively I knew this bird
was a swift flyer and these wild birds were no exception. The view was
excellent but brief. Probably only totalling about 5 seconds.
The next sighting recorded by Greg happened about one hour later with 12 birds
flying over the road. To say that I was a bit exasperated at not seeing these
might have been a bit of an understatment but I was overjoyed at the sighting
none the less.
On September 7th Greg once again saw four individuals flying over at a similar
time (aprox 9 AM) and a similar brief view. Though brief Greg's view was
excellent allowing views of the major field marks, pink throat, green wing
patches etc.
At approximately 5 PM again on September 7 we combed the same area but moved
deeper into the sand dunes a good distance from the road. Suddenly Greg's
sharp ears detected the calls of the parrots and I raced after him to find a
total of 6 Princess resting calmly about 11 meters high in a casuarina tree.
Fortunately I had my video camera and then easily became lost in the joyful
task of filming a segment I had dreamed about for many many years. I was
struck how similar these birds were to my aviary birds but yet the calls had a
distinct reedey quality that my PP's never exhibited. When the birds finally
took off their flight was absolutely remarkable. Like being shot out of a gun
rather than flying, those long tails trailing behind. Fortunately they only
flew about 300 meters distant and lighted again. This provided another shorter
but no less exciting chance to film them.
I cannot thank Greg Little enough for his fantastic birding skills and
assisting me on the filming expedition of a lifetime!
Don Kimball
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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