Sunshine Coast Birds

Birding and other wildlife experiences from the Sunshine Coast and elsewhere in Australia - and from overseas - with scribblings about travel, environmental issues, kayaking, hiking and camping.

Monday 25 July 2011

The Paradise Parrot and Eric Zillmann

Meet the Paradise Parrot, the only species of bird on the Australian mainland known to have become extinct.
And meet Eric Zillmann, the only person alive who has seen a Paradise Parrot.



It is about three quarters of a century since Eric Zillmann saw a Paradise Parrot, but the memory is as fresh as it is vivid. “I can see the bird now as clearly today as back then,” the renowned naturalist tells me from his home in Bundaberg, on the central Queensland coast.

Eric Zillmann, 88, is the only person alive who has seen the only bird known to have become extinct on the Australian mainland.  His last sighting of Psephotus pulcherrimus, in 1938, is also regarded as the final authentic record of this brilliantly coloured parakeet which has gone the way of the Tasmanian Tiger and the Dodo of Mauritius.

Eric was just 10 years old when he saw his first Paradise Parrot and all of 15 when he saw his last parrot five years later, but even at that age he was a keen student of natural history. “We grew up in the bush. We didn’t have TV or anything like that and we knew what we were looking at.” His family lived near Wallaville, 12km south-west of Gin Gin in the Burnett River Valley, southeast Queensland. It was the era of The Depression, and the family managed as best they could.

In 1933, the flooding of Currajong Creek damaged fencing and bridges on a unnamed 230-ha  property in the area, prompting the owner to sell it a friend of the Zillmanns. When the fencing was repaired, the owners  hired Eric and his father, Ernest,  to manage livestock. Their job was to muster and dip cattle, and during regular mustering forays, they would encounter the parrots.

“It used to be just the one pair of parrots each time we went out but we would always see them,” Eric says. “I remember the colours, the red flashing wing and the brownish back as the male took off in front of us. They would always be on the ground feeding when we found them. Sometimes we went out dipping once a month and they’d be there each time.”

Eric says the birds favoured short grasses in sparsely wooded country. “They were not shy. You could get to within 30 feet (about 10m) of them before they’d flush and fly off.”

In 1938, the Zillmanns and other workers were levelling termite mounds for the material that then formed the foundations for tennis courts. “We hired a two-ton truck and dug up 13 loads of ant bed.” After lopping off the top of a mound, Eric found a chamber containing four eggs.

He did not link the termite mound to the parrots, or finally identify the species of parrot he and his father had been seeing, until  he looked up a copy of A.J. Leach’s 1926 field guide, An Australian Bird Book. “That’s when we realised for sure what the birds were,” he says. “The existence of the birds had been known to people in the area but they were simply known to us as the anthill parrots. At that time, we did not know that the parrots were so rare.”

A steep decline in populations of the species began late in the 19th Century, and the Paradise Parrot was extremely rare by the 1920s. Almost certainly, a combination of intensive grazing and modified fire regimes throughout its southern Queensland range was responsible for the demise of the species.

Eric left the Gin Gin area soon after discovering the egg chamber but his father continued to report the single pair of Paradise Parrots until 1940. Much later than these sightings, Eric became involved in searches for the lost parakeet in the 1960s. He was shown the same termite mound where, in 1922, Cyril Jerrard took his historic photographs of the Paradise Parrot near the Burnett River. Visits by Eric to the area where he saw the parrots as a teenager proved fruitless.

Eric’s sightings are acknowledged in Penny Olsen’s seminal book on the Paradise Parrot, Glimpses of Paradise – The Quest for the Beautiful Parakeet (2007).

Eric Zillman has been awarded an OAM and an honorary tertiary degree for his services to natural history. His abilities in the field with birds and other wildlife - and his knowledge of natural history in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of Queensland - is legendary. Eric is reluctant these days to tell his story about the Paradise Parrot, but he appreciates the value of his unique experience. “I can’t prove now the identity of what we saw but in my mind I know what they were. I am humbled by what I regard as the most uplifting experience of my life.”



Saturday 16 July 2011

Brush-turkeys in your garden


Residents in subtropical and tropical eastern Australia have long faced the dilemma of what to do about the destruction wrought on their gardens by the Australian Brush-turkey. The birds scratch up large quantities of leaf litter for their nesting mounds, frequently resulting in extensive damage to gardens. Following problems with the birds in my Sunshine Coast garden, I initiated a Facebook discussion which resulted in a novel solution. The strategic placement of a large mirror will drive the bird away. That happened in my case, with the bird calling it quits after a couple of days fighting its image in the mirror.

Update 2012.
After putting the mirror away when the male bird was deterred last season, he was back for the beginning of the current nesting season last week. After again digging up half the garden, the mirror was back in place. Another bout of fiurious fighting with its reflection, and the bird again backed down and has left us in peace.

Monday 11 July 2011

Sunshine Coast July 2011 Pelagic



Buller’s Albatross and three species of storm-petrel, including White-bellied and Black-bellied, were the highlights of the inaugural pelagic birding trip off Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

Our 10m catamaran, the Cat-A-Pult, departed Mooloolaba Harbour at 0700 hours, with the air temperature a crisp 5*C. Although encountering moderate westerlies and a mild swell not far from shore, we reached the Mooloolaba Wide area at the edge of the continental shelf at 0840 hours - a relatively quick trip to the shelf. We encountered little inshore, with brief views of distant Fluttering Shearwaters for some and a smattering of Australasian Gannets and Crested Terns. At the shelf, 31 nautical miles from shore and at a depth of 200m, our sharp-eyed skipper, Paddy, began laying a berley trail. It was not long before the first Providence Petrels (above) appeared.

Soon after, a Buller’s Albatross arrived to feed on the berley, albeit at some distance. It was followed later in the morning by the first of two sightings (probably of the same bird) of a White-bellied Storm-Petrel.  Wilson’s Storm-Petrels and Hutton’s Shearwaters flew in to the berley and Providence Petrels were in attendance constantly as we drifted with the trail for 7 nautical miles E-NE to a depth of 400m. At 12:30 hours, we began retracing the route of the berley trail, seeing a Buller’s Albatross which presumably was a different bird because it had a paler head. 

Shortly before leaving the shelf at 14:00 hours, close to the point where we had arrived a little over 5 hours earlier, a Black-bellied Storm-Petrel offered nice views. This was the only Fregatta storm-petrel that we managed to photograph. There was no sign of the New Zealand Storm-Petrel seen off Southport recently. We returned to the harbour at 15:30 hours.

Conditions were sunny and pleasant, with a gentle 5-knot south-westerly for most of the day - apart from the rough patch early in the day - and visibility was excellent. Maximum air temperature was 19*C.

The only mammals seen were 4 Humpback Whales heading north.

Participants: Paul Barden, Marcus Clarke, Ken Cross, Paddy Dimond (skipper), Glen Gyldenlove, Bob James, Ray Kellman, Kate Kellman, Rob Kernot, Dave Metcalf, Owen Prowse, Greg Roberts (organiser), Brian Willey.





Conditions were sunny and pleasant, with a gentle 5-knot south-westerly for most of the day - apart from the rough patch early in the day - and visibility was excellent. Maximum air temperature was 19*C.

The only mammals seen were 4 Humpback Whales heading north.

Participants: Paul Barden, Marcus Clarke, Ken Cross, Paddy Dimond (skipper), Glen Gyldenlove, Bob James, Ray Kellman, Kate Kellman, Rob Kernot, Dave Metcalf, Owen Prowse, Greg Roberts (organiser), Brian Willey.


List of species with totals seen: 
50
40
15
8
4
2
2
White-bellied Storm Petrel (Fregetta grallaria)
1
2
2
1