Know your endangered Aussie species: NIGHT PARROT 🦜

I heard on the radio today that it's **International Parrot Day 🦜**so here's a parrot joke (also from the radio): What do you get when you cross a parrot with a caterpillar?.... A walkie talkie!

It's also fitting we feature our elusive and endangered little Night Parrot. The last living specimen was collected in Western Australia in 1912. It then disappeared, with no confirmed records of the bird between 1912 and 1979. Then began a trickle of unconfirmed reports from across its former range and two dead specimens found in Queensland in 1990 and 2006.

In 2013 a wildlife photographer captured several photos and a few seconds of video footage of a live bird in western Qld. Global interest in the discovery was so intense that the exact location of this only-known population was kept secret to protect the birds from disturbance.

Outback birds that they are, Night Parrots seem to need little water, hiding in clumps of spinifex by day and emerging after sunset to forage for food.

They are not prolific breeders, usually only fledging one or two chicks each year, so increases in numbers are gradual. Conservation efforts mean that they have been given a safe place to grow steadily and are further protected by a concerted feral management program.

To find out more about Night Parrot conservation see https://www.bushheritage.org.au/species/night-parrot?srsltid=AfmBOop6ArzM-ySatB1xrgfg8UmNjZtLrXXycle6zCXPW7lQ31CR16t6

And here's a recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEf2M72NQk8