Went to Melaleuca today.. Saw a number of Beautiful Firetails for the first time, as well as 2 OBPs. Best. Day. Ever. :)
Male and female as they arrived:
Male at nesting box:
Back to a tree:
Not a great shot, but the male taking flight. I like it, even though it's a crap photo:
On the feeding / monitoring table with the firetails:
Male OBP on the table:
Just the firetails on the table:
So tragic that their demise seems iminent. Hoping for a miracle but I gather extinction in 2-4 years is forecast by some... Hope you enjoy the photos.
Cheers,
Scott.
Wonderful series Scott. They are beautiful little parrots and hopefully they can find some way to hang on. I can imagine how excited you were seeing these birds.
Cheers, Owen.
Wow Scott, what an experience!!! Where is Melaleuca? The firetails, are they beautiful firetails? (I only have the red-browed firetails in my garden) How much luck did you have? M-L
M-L
Thanks Owen and Araminta, it was an awesome experience!
Melaleuca is in the south-west of Tas. You can only walk (for 5 or more days) or fly in to get there. I flew :)
Amazing wildnerness, awesome flight, but the parrots were my reason for going!!! They weren't anywhere to be found until 15 mins before we had to leave. So glad these 2 arrived :))
Amazing. What a privilege to see such a rare and beautiful bird. I feel so sad at the thought of them becoming extinct. It doesn't seem right, when they have wilderness to live in. Do you think they'll still be there in January? We'll be down there, and will have a couple of days around Port Huon
Beautiful shots Scott. What an amazing day you had Luckiy for you you had that 15 minutes up your sleeve.We would love to be able to see them in the wild. The firetails are beautiful. The colours on the tails are striking.
There was an article in out local paper last week (Melbourne) regarding the Orange Bellied Parrot. It stated that the species was flocking between Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula and Werribee. They say that fewer that 50 of the birds are left in the wild, how sad is that. But they were encouraged by 26 separated recorded sightting of the parrots, ranging fron one to six birds in the area. Hopefully there is more than what they think.
Beautiful shots Scott. What an amazing day you had Luckiy for you you had that 15 minutes up your sleeve.We would love to be able to see them in the wild. The firetails are beautiful. The colours on the tails are striking.
There was an article in out local paper last week (Melbourne) regarding the Orange Bellied Parrot. It stated that the species was flocking between Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula and Werribee. They say that fewer that 50 of the birds are left in the wild, how sad is that. But they were encouraged by 26 separated recorded sightting of the parrots, ranging fron one to six birds in the area. Hopefully there is more than what they think.
Birdgirl - they'll still be there in January. They depart in March and April. I was booked on the full day trip with Par Avion - it's been cancelled the first 2 times I was supposed to go; this time I got to go for the morning only before the weather closed in and we had to leave. If you go down, do the full day tour, because they finish with a look at this monitoring / feeding station, and you're more likely to see them / see more of them going later in the day when they're normally feeding (our guide said 4pm the previous day the group had watched 12 feeding!).
Cath/Shane - thanks for the info. I gather that by the end of last summer, there were 50 adults + 12 young fledged. I overheard a volunteer there at the moment mention the number 36 or 39 seen there so far... All young are leg-banded and have a blood sample taken. They're always on the lookout for unbanded birds because it means there were nests they didn't know about. They kill starlings + some currawongs and remove some male rosellas before the OBP breeding season to improve the odds for them.
I couldn't believe how striking the red tail is on the firetails. I've seen red-broweds before, but these were unbelievably dazzlingly red.
Cheers all,
Scott.