This weekend volunteers will head out along Victoria’s coast to look for Orange-bellied Parrots, one of Australia’s most critically endangered birds.
Less than 50 parrots are thought to exist in the wild today with a captive breeding population of about 320.
photo – Chris Tzaros
Each year these small birds fly from south west Tasmania to over winter on the southern coast of Victoria and South Australia where they feed on coastal saltmarsh.
Sarcocornia quinqueflora – beaded glasswort, part of saltmarsh habitat
The Orange-bellied Parrot was still to be seen in our part of the world in 1949 when Len Robinson
‘walked a mile through the mixture of wasteland and remnant salt marsh known as Fishermans Bend. There, within sight of the Yarra, alongside the proving ground for General Motors Holden, he found what he had been looking for.’*
Last year, an area of saltmarsh at Webb Dock was filled in to make way for Port expansion. It was considered by experts to be too isolated a fragment to be worth preserving.
Gone now
It was the last remaining area of saltmarsh at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay.
Skinc, with Friends of Westgate Park, rescued some of those plants to add to the existing saltmarsh plants around the pink lake. Conditions are not auspicious. The highly saline pink lake, with no connection to the sea, is not regularly flushed with saltwater. The shoreline is ringed with rubble. Nevertheless, the Friends have a sense of urgency about ensuring saltmarsh continues to grow in this area.
The Orange-bellied Parrot is protected by State and Commonwealth legislation throughout its range. Even though there is a recovery plan in place involving a cross disciplinary team, funding for the recovery effort is not assured and depends on grants.
‘Extinction is a choice’ said Samantha Vine from BirdLife Australia at the Threatened Species Summit held in Melbourne last week.
That is not a choice that the committed people participating in this weekend’s surveys are willing to make. 50 birds across the Victorian coast looking for birds evolved to blend with their habitat – like looking for a needle in a haystack.
On the first day of summer in 1991, I was one of 250 residents of South and Port Melbourne inspired by participating in the Wings of Summer, a celebration of the Orange-bellied Parrot produced by Meme McDonald. The event coincided with the first release into the wild of captive birds.
24 years on, and Orange-bellied Parrot still hangs on by a thread.
More on the Orange-bellied Parrot, Neophema chrysogaster
Like Save the Orange-bellied Parrot on facebook to see how you can support the recovery effort
Birdlife – Orange-bellied Parrot
*Dooley, Sean (2008) Orange-bellied Parrot, The Monthly April 2008
Garnett, Stephen (2015) Don’t give up on orange-bellied parrots yet, there’s still hope The Conversation, June 10, 2015