NIGHT PARROT

Distribution : Thought to be extinct until 1979. Sightings were very occasional from the collection of the first known specimen in 1845 until the 1870s. Between 1870 and 1890 there were numerous observations and another 20 specimens were collected. Confirmed records became rarer from the mid-1880s and had stopped almost completely by 1900. The only specimen from the early 20th century was taken in 1912 and the species was subsequently considered extinct by some ornithologists. A number of reports in the 1960s and early 1970s could not be confirmed until 1979, when a South Australian Museum team found several birds in far north western South Australia. In 1990, a team comprising Walter Boles (Australian Museum ornithologist), Wayne Longmore (Australian Museum associate) and Max Thompson (visiting US ornithologist) was returning from an extensive field trip that for the previous six weeks had taken them from Sydney to the Kimberley and across the Top End of the Northern Territory. They were returning through western Queensland, travelling south from Mt Isa along the Diamantina Developmental Road (Highway 83). On 17 October 1990, 36 kilometres north of Boulia, they stopped at the side of the road, so Max could turn one vehicle around to get a better look at some Australian Pratincoles (Stiltia isabella ). Wayne and Walter remained parked on the side of the road to reduce the disturbance to the birds. When Max returned and pulled behind the first vehicle, Walter got out and walked back to speak to him. As Walter turned away from the vehicle, he happened to look down and saw the carcass of a Night Parrot on the roadside next to his foot. This parrot had been killed by a motor vehicle, but it could not be determined whether it had been killed where it was found, or had been transported some distance in a vehicle’s grill before falling by the roadside. First described by Gould P.Z.S. 1861.