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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