Princess Parrots - Newhaven's Royal Visit

Princess Parrot Polytelis alexandrae. Museum of Central Australia specimen, prepared and mounted by Ian Archibald.

"I feel assured that the discovery of an additional species of the lovely genus Polytelis will be hailed with pleasure by ornithologists...". 

So wrote John Gould in his Handbook to the Birds of Australia in 1863, of the first Princess Parrot collected for description by Frederick Waterhouse during John McDouall Stuart's first expedition to Central Australia. Frankly, it's all downhill from there as he descends into the awful toadying language that was fairly typical of the time, at one point opining hopefully that the eponymous Alexandra might one day become, "Queen of these realms and dependencies, of which Australia is by no means the most inconspicuous."  Really!? So Australia is definitely not the most inconspicuous? But please sir, surely you gush!

Enough though - it was a different time and Gould was probably just smoothing his career path and looking to secure future funding. The specimen in question was collected from a place named Howell's Ponds which is unknown to me. Some more recent specimens, however, have turned up at a place called Newhaven. Newhaven I know quite well.

Having seen the birds flying free and very much alive in the desert, Ian is the first to admit that the mounted specimens have none of their grace. They give us a chance to study their plumage in close detail, which is very tricky when they are zipping about your head. 

When the word came through from AWC's managers at the reserve that Princess Parrots had been seen every day for four days running, it was a foregone conclusion that I would move hell and earth to head out for a look. Finding a travelling companion was less straightforward though. Fortunately, a meeting of the Alice Springs Field Naturalists Club on Wednesday gave me the opportunity to canvas for potential takers. The single spare seat in my car was soon snapped up by a distinguished looking gent who introduced himself as Ian. A more interesting travelling companion would be difficult to find.

Ian Archibald has recently completed a lengthy career with the Northern Territory Museum as a technician working at both the museum in Darwin and Alice Springs. Among many other achievements in his long career, Ian skinned, stuffed, and mounted the famous Sweetheart - the 17ft Saltwater Crocodile that famously tormented fishermen in the Finniss River around Sweet's Lookout before his accidental demise during a relocation attempt. Ian has also been a steady hand at the nationally significant Alcoota fossil dig since its inception and has mounted a number of the skeletons from that site for the NT Museum. In short, he has prepared creatures of all shapes and sizes from tiny Marsupial Moles to Blue Whales and everything in between and has a mastery of understatement that is typical of well-travelled folks who've spent a good deal of their career in the field. He remarked of the Blue Whale experience after the discovery of a beached and decomposing specimen on a remote Top End beach, "walking around knee deep in rotting whale guts for days on end... it's not much fun, especially in tropical heat." I'll take his word for it.

Ian with the cast of the largest bird that ever lived, Dromornis stirtoni (actually a composite made from the assembled fragments of several incomplete skeletons exhumed in the area) that he helped to excavate from the Alcoota fossil bed, and later mounted for the Museum of Central Australia.

Just a small corner of "Ian's Room" at the Museum of Central Australia. All manner of skeletons, exquisitely assembled and posed - pelicans, mala, bats, mulga snakes - Ian did the lot.

So there was little doubt that I had an interesting travelling companion to pass the journey. Princess Parrot would prove to be one of the very few animals that swims, flies, or farts, that Ian had yet to see in the wild. He had prepared a few for museum displays though, which makes him something of an expert on their plumage and morphology. So the drive out, when we weren't stopping for snakes, lizards, and roadside birding, was taken up with discussion of spatules and tail lengths.

Keep an eye out for the sign. If you miss this turn it's a long way to Hall's Creek.

The drive out to Newhaven is a very manageable 750km round trip from Alice Springs. The first stretch along the Tanami Road is bitumen all the way out to Tilmouth Well. There's a bit of rough unsealed road past Tilmouth Well Roadhouse until the Newhaven turn-off about 25kms further down the track. After the turn off, the road to Newhaven is a single lane of sandy road, mostly as straight as a die, for the 135kms to the reserve homestead. The road is quite good as it doesn't get too much traffic, but you will still need a four wheel drive due to a few deep sandy sections and some heavy corrugations inside the reserve itself. [All other outback driving precautions should be assumed. Carry a first aid kit and lots of extra food and water. Duplex capable UHF radio equipment as a minimum and satellite telephones and an EPIRB if available. Leave detailed travel plans and itineraries with a reliable friend]. Otherwise it is an overwhelmingly pleasant drive - on our way we encountered a group of Australian Bustards on the track who slowly rose on heavy wings and followed us for a while. In just about every account in print of these birds the adjective "stately" always seems to be used, and I see no reason to depart from this convention.

Thorny Devil Moloch horridus. It doesn't matter how many you've seen - they're always worth stopping for.

"Welcome to Newhaven Sanctuary!"

With the promise of such an enigmatic species as Princess Parrot looming large in our thoughts, we still found time to notice a swag of other species on our travels to and around the reserve. Crimson Chats, Black-breasted Buzzards, White-fronted Honeyeaters, and big flocks of Budgerigars announced and welcomed our arrival. Managers Jo and Danae were already scheduled to leave on holidays when the Princess Parrots were discovered on the property. They have had to tear themselves away after just a few days with the birds, leaving the reserve and all visitors - not to mention the parrots themselves - in the friendly and capable hands of Peter and Toni. This experienced team have recently acquitted a stint as wardens of the Broome Bird Observatory and are well-travelled Australian birders who are still pinching themselves after the stroke of luck that has landed them in the middle of this rare event. More generous, knowledgeable and accommodating hosts would be very difficult to find. (If you're extra nice, you might get one of Toni's peanut bikkies - they're worth the trip all by themselves).

Ringed Brown Snake Pseudonaja modesta. The prettiest of the genus.

You're first job on arrival will be to check in, and notify the management of your arrival. Of course, by this stage, you will already have booked in advance and they will be expecting you so it is essential that you make saying, "hello" your first task so that they know you've arrived safely. Leaving Alice Springs at around 7am will still get you to Newhaven well before 1pm including a stretch of the legs at Tilmouth Well and a few incidental stops along the way - plenty of time for birding around the reserve.

Check the interesting sightings board when you register - just what you want to see! 43 Princess Parrots.

Peter and Toni will be escorting all visitors to the site where the Princess Parrots have been, so far, as regular as clockwork. AWC management are asking that visitors don't reveal the exact location of the birds within the reserve which is entirely reasonable under the circumstances. Peter and Toni will probably just run one trip each day at either sunrise or in the afternoon depending on demand. They are utterly familiar with the birds' movements up to this point and they are learning more with each passing day.

It could be sunrise at any patch of scrub across the vast Australian deserts - but this little patch is special, at least for now.

Bloodwood Corymbia opaca, at sunrise. This tree has 3 Princess Parrots in it, so well concealed that I walked straight past them.

A bird in flight clearly showing no extension to the eighth primary, or as we came to know it, "P8". In an adult male bird the eighth primary sports a spread spatula-like extension that projects past the 2 outer primaries. This feature is referred to as a spatule, and is really only visible if you get a good close view.

In the mornings they seem to sit out on the exposed branches to warm up before descending to the ground. Though no feeding was directly observed (the undergrowth obscuring any view of the birds on the ground) it seems possible, if not probable, that they were feeding during their time on the ground.

The birds seemed utterly unaffected and undisturbed by our presence. All the same, I was more interested in making observations of natural behaviour, most of my photographs are from a reasonable distance. During the morning session we counted 48 birds, but estimated more than 50 based on the number of birds heard in the distance and a few smaller flocks moving quickly through the area.

Shots from the afternoon session show the birds dozing in close branches or dense foliage, mostly in Bloodwoods, although a few were also observed in Desert Oaks Allocasuarina decaisneana.

This bird had no spatules but otherwise adult plumage judging by colour and tail length, leading me to think this was an adult female. Two birds perched with her had shorter tails, and a scruffier, duller appearance - perhaps immature birds completing a first moult? In the afternoon we counted a total of 17 birds with many more heard in trees nearby.

In the Bloodwoods the birds have an uncanny ability to disappear among the foliage. The green shoulder patches are a perfect simulacrum of the leaf and the other colours, which seem so garish, are in fact very effective at disappearing the bird into the bark. Many of the birds exhibited the often mentioned habit of perching along the branch rather than across it as might be expected of most parrots.

The "Lolly-Box" at the Museum of Central Australia - stunning Centralians all.

Mounted specimen of an adult male bird clearly showing the projection of P8.

When you get to Newhaven, you will be welcomed by a great team of people, a wealth of natural beauties, and with luck a rowdy bunch of the most charismatic parrots it is possible to find. Check the AWC website http://www.australianwildlife.org/AWC-Sanctuaries/Newhaven-Sanctuary.aspx for all the details pertaining to your visit and please be sure to book ahead so that the managers and volunteers can cater for everyone. A small amount of firewood is provided in the campground. The camping fee is $10 per night and there is a $50 fee per vehicle to cover the time and expenses of volunteers to lead groups out to the Princess Parrot site - this is a bargain price for such an experience so please do the right thing and cough up (I happen to know that Peter and Toni both enjoy an ice cream at the end of the day and supplies are running thin so if you have room in your car fridge for treats, I'm sure they will be most welcome.)

So there it is; so much more than just another tick, the Princess Parrot is a piece of Australian desert folklore that calls to us all. Far from just hardcore birders, on our trip we had a couple of teachers and a nurse from nearby Nyirripi who drove over to see what the fuss was all about. It isn't often that you would think of people turning up to a Princess Parrot twitch without even a single set of binoculars in the car between them - it's that sort of event.

The desert has opened up its treasure chest to share one of its rarest jewels. How long they stay is anybody's guess, but one thing is for certain - you will not be disappointed by the journey.

For anybody planning to head out, feel free to get in touch for help or advice on any other central Australian birding plans - birdscentral@gmail.com

Thanks to Jo and Danae for having Ian and myself out at such short notice and to Peter and Toni for their kindness and generosity with their time and insights. Lastly, thanks to Ian Archibald for balancing out my perennially lop-sided ute and sharing his wealth of knowledge and experiences with me over two of the greatest days of desert birding I can remember.

Once In A Lifetime: Welcome Swallows Re-open the Sewage Ponds and Usher in a Historic Season

This afternoon, I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought I would pop down and see if the sewage ponds had been re-opened to the birding public. Joy of joys - they had.

It turned out to be fortuitous as, as if to lend their very name to the occasion, two Welcome Swallows (Welcome-back Swallows?) were swooping over the islands in EP10 and giving beautiful prolonged and close views, leaving no room for the possibility of a misidentified White-backed Swallow. This is the first time I have seen this species so close to Alice Springs in a while, and is a happy portent. It is a common enough species in the more well-birded areas to our south, but the real excitement of birding around Central Australia is in observing these otherwise common species and understanding precisely how exceptional their appearance is in our region.

In discussion with ethno-botanical desert guru Peter Latz at the Field Nats meeting on Wednesday night, it was instantly apparent that even those who have inhabited the region for upwards of 7 decades (and have been paying close attention), consider this to be the greatest string of "boom" seasons in The Red Centre in living memory. The state of the bird populations at the sewage ponds at present reiterates this observation. The desert is yet to dry out - ephemeral clay pans, rivers, and lakes in every direction are still holding water and considerable populations of birds. Reports from up and down the track suggest that waterfowl have bred well, right across the region. The sewage ponds, which are typically the largest expanse of open water for many hundreds of kilometres, are already hosting a flock of almost 200 Red-necked Avocets and a similar number of Black-winged Stilts; my best guess at the scattered numbers of Grey Teal, settled around the 300 mark, and Pink-eared Duck are in similar abundance and most have a healthy flotilla of ducklings in tow.

Black-tailed Native-hens are in ridiculously large, swirling flocks around the periphery of all the ponds, and  both our resident grebe species have grebelets (if that isn't a word it should be). The point is this; the place is going off, and the country has only just started drying out. There are still major bodies of water in remote areas holding large populations of birds which will mobilise, and concentrate on areas like the sewage ponds, as soon as conditions start to become drier.

If the healthy populations at the sewage ponds, and the opinions and personal experiences of several long-term residents and ecologists, are anything to go by, we are in for a very interesting time ladies and gentlemen. Mark these words - Princess Parrots at Newhaven are just the tip of the iceberg. Get out and start looking. People will still be writing about this season one hundred years from now.

Princess Parrots at Newhaven!

http://www.eremaea.com/BirdlineRecentSightings.aspx?Birdline=4

Birdline NT today reports flocks of up to 50 birds have been seen for the last four days in a row by Newhaven Sanctuary manager Danae Moore. Give them a call before you go - (08) 8964 6000.

I'll race you.

First Alby. Now Meet... Blackie?

Crested Pigeon Ocyphaps lophotes, with dark plumage. The tail was entirely black, but the rest of the plumage was a much darker grey than usual, as you can tell by the "normal" bird perched beside our subject.

The Crested Pigeons of Heffernan Road have again produced an interesting example of aberrant plumage colouration. If you're a regular reader then you may have already read about the schizochroistic Crested Pigeon that has been living in the area for several years. Just last week, I stumbled upon a bird with a different plumage aberration.

This bird, far from being pale, was very much darker than a normal Crested Pigeon. As you can see in the image above, the colour of the eyes and the feet was still quite normal, but the plumage overall was very dark grey, and the undertail and rectrices were quite black. Interestingly, the iridescence on the wing is still present which was notably absent in the pale-coloured bird.

Sewage Ponds Closed for Wild Dog Control...

It is a pity to have to bring you some bad news, but I have just been contacted by administration at Power & Water Corporation and they are closing the sewage treatment ponds in Alice Springs to all birding access until further notice. A shooter will be onsite in an effort to eradicate another pack of wild dogs that has been reported in the area.

This is unfortunate for anyone intending to visit in the next few weeks, but it is certainly preferable to anyone being injured, which would probably have ramifications for future access to the site. As always, I'll keep you posted and let you know as soon as I hear that the ponds are re-opened.

Ilparpa Swamp (right next door to the sewage ponds) will remain accessible, and holds many of the same interesting species as the sewage ponds. During my water sampling rounds this morning, there were a few flocks of Crimson Chats moving along the boundary of the swamp and the ponds, and I could here a few Golden-headed Cisticola calling from the reed beds in the swamp as well.

If you're heading to town, always feel free to get in touch and I'm happy to point you in the direction of alternative sites. birdscentral@gmail.com

Gastropods and Macropods: Euros, Snails, and Emu-wrens During a Walk in the Rain

Rain is a beautiful thing. Living in the desert, I imagine that there is a touch of the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" syndrome at work here. It's true; when it can be so long between drinks, it makes one pay attention and really appreciate wet weather when it arrives. But really, I've always liked the rain and have been known to dance in the street during summer showers in Melbourne. We've been pretty lucky in Alice, with above average rainfalls in two of the last three years. When the rain started pounding on the old tin roof of The Lab on Sunday, I knew it wouldn't be long before I could resist no longer, and headed for the hills.

The view across from the barrier hills to the slot canyons on a misty old day.

My particular fascination at the moment is exploring a large area of crown land, very close to Alice Springs. It's the southern side of the Heavitree Range (Mt Gillen) which slopes gently down to the Ilparpa claypans. This area starts just behind the tip, and extends for a good four or five kilometres before it starts to get fenced off and broken into the rural blocks of the Ilparpa sub-division. Most of this area was spared the vicious fires of last year, and remains covered with thick spinifex, groves of old mulga, creeks filled with River Red Gums and floodouts dotted with ancient Ghost Gums. The back of the range is broken into a series of slot canyons which divide the range into vertebrae-like chunks with angular, dark crevices in between, inviting with the promise of Cypress groves, ferns, and lichens. The diversity in the vegetation communities here is astonishing. Perhaps best of all, Buffel Grass Cenchrus ciliaris, that insidious scourge of the inland, though common in the low-lying areas, is absent from the higher slopes.

Blistered Pyrgomorph Monistria pustulifera, a stunning member of the order Orthoptera. I am largely ignorant of the ways of orthoptera, but this species certainly seemed to have an association with Striped Peppermint Bush Prostanthera striatiflora. Every bush I passed seemed to have a few individuals, including a few "piggy-backing" couples like this pair.

The vast areas of old-growth spinifex in particular are of interest for their potential to hold communities of a few special bird species that favour this habitat. With the weather, drizzly, overcast, and misty, I set out primarily to see what snails I could find taking advantage of the cool, damp weather. A great birding day wasn't anticipated, but I was in for a few pleasant surprises.

The view from the first part of the ascent looking down on the barrier hills.

After driving in past the clay pans to get away from the dog-walkers, four-wheel drive enthusiasts, and motorcyclists (this is crown land, not a conservation reserve and the low areas around the clay pans are a popular destination for off-road motor sports activities of all kinds) I was in blissful silence, and isolation. Less than a kilometre to my west were cattle and rural properties at the start of the Ilparpa sub-division, and to my east perhaps only three kilometres to the sewage ponds and the tip (landfill). This is my favourite part of living in Alice Springs; just a few minutes from your front door is splendid wilderness. While it would be naive to think that I might be breaking new ground on my little explorations, it is very easy to convince yourself of precisely this. There are no trails, no footprints, and no outward signs of human incursion whatsoever. A series of parallel calcrete rises makes it impractical for even very determined four wheel drivers to get closer than a couple of kilometres to the base of the range, so it is like a naturally hidden valley - our own Jurassic Park - a bush birding paradise.

The lower reaches of the canyon; smooth, wet rocks. Not ideal for walking, but perfect for snails and a diversity of plant life.

After hiding the car in a thicket, I made a rough course for a promising looking canyon. I tracked my path using GPS, and on reviewing my course later on it is amazing how much I meandered. There is something about being in untouched country with no paths to guide you that invites pointless wandering. Every bird call had to be investigated - every tree hollow inspected. Descending the last of the calcrete ramparts into the protected scrub below I was followed by Weebills Smicrornis brevirostris flavescens, and my presence was announced to the residents by the frantic yammering of Rufous Whistlers Pachycephala ruifiventris, Grey Shrike-thrush Colluricincla harmonica rufiventris, and Grey-crowned Babblers Pomatostomus temporalis rubeculus. A background soundscape was fleshed out by Crested Bellbirds Oreoica gutteralis and Splendid Fairy-wrens Malurus splendens. Western Gerygones Gerygone fusca, played their tiny violins through the scrub as I passed, and in among the great fugue of birdsong a call came to me that wasn't immediately familiar. It was one of those moments of earbirding when you hear a bird call that you know, you've heard it before, something in your brain tells you not to get too excited, but the fact that you can't place the identity of the caller has you instantly on edge.

Up higher, the mist closed in but the unbroken spinifex community promised great things.

The moment passed when a slightly larger grey bird came boldly hopping up to investigate my pishing among a family of fairy-wrens. A Redthroat Pyrrholaemus brunneus - by no means a common bird around The Centre, so a good find. Nothing to write home about, but I've certainly never seen them in this area before, so it is always good to find another place where birds live. This was a male with the distinctive rusty gular patch. He was soon joined by a female and I moved off through the mulga leaving behind an astonishing mixed flock of bush birds. As well as the fairy-wrens and Redthroats, there were Inland and Slaty-backed Thornbills Acanthiza apicalis and A. robustirostris respectively, Red-capped Robins Petroica goodenovii, and a Willie Wagtail Rhipidura leucophrys ratcheting away at close range. In the distance a Channel-billed Cuckoo Scythrops novaehollandiae, called, perhaps harassed by some Little Crows Corvus bennetti, flying over on their way to a soggy afternoon tea at the tip.

Eventually the visibility was cut down to only about 100m.

The mulga thinned out and I finally reached the base of the range and started my ascent up through thick spinifex grass. The floor of the slot canyons are thickly entangled with shrubs and fallen logs, and in the wet conditions the polished angular slabs of quartzite were nearly impossible to scale. I chose the easier path of following the lip of the canyon as I ascended, allowing me to dip back down to the canyon floor from the side if anything of interest presented itself. A Chestnut-rumped Thornbill Acanthiza uropygialis, was busily refurbishing a disused Willie Wagtail nest. Dusky Grasswrens Amytornis purnelli announced my passage up the mountainside with strident calls up and down the canyon. They ran ahead of me in parties of three and four, darting out from behind spinifex clumps and zitting at me before darting off.

Thick spinifex on the gentle slopes near the top. The domain of Rufous-crowned Emu-wrens, Spinifexbirds, and Spinifex Pigeons.

Thunder rolled over from the escarpment above and the clouds visibly thickened and lowered down around me. The view out across the sodden Ilparpa Valley was mesmerising and I could have sat and watched it for the rest of the afternoon, but I was yet to find some snails, and I was still missing a couple of important spinifex residents from the bird list.

I pushed on higher and higher, until the GPS showed that I was about 300m back from the escarpment along the face of Mt Gillen, and about 700m west of the summit. It was near enough to the top that the gradient was more gentle, the spinifex a bit thicker and the mist was really pushing in on all sides. A stocky male Euro Macropus robustus, was certainly living up to the robust part of his name and peered at me impassively as the clouds scudded past all around and between us.

Euro Macropus robustus, unperturbed by my encroachment.

Almost as soon as I downed my pack the distinctive call of a Rufous-crowned Emu-wren Stipiturus ruficeps, screeled out from the spinifex to the east. A tiny figure dropped into the scrub as I raised my binoculars. I waited and the call came again; this time from two different birds about 10m apart. I made my way over as stealthily as possible while cursing the spinifex spines under my breath, and crouched down to await the next calls. It was a good couple of minutes and the blood was pooling in my feet before a weak call came again; then another call closer and stronger. Another minute and a male ascended a spinifex stalk only 5 metres away to release a 5 second aria before fluttering off and diving headfirst into a clump of spinifex. A second bird made a crash-course for the same clump and was not seen or heard from again. I sat crouched silently as the mist closed in around us. A Grey-headed Honeyeater Lichenostomus keartlandii, fiddled about in a nearby Whitewood, but the emu-wrens were staying put. I stood slowly and immediately heard more emu-wren calls from some spinifex about 20m distant. I considered playing the waiting game with these blokes as well, but I decided that I had achieved my goal and left them to chatter away to themselves in peace.

Chuffed with finding a population of these special birds that I was previously unaware of, I threw my pack on and started the descent with my eyes to the ground. Out in this sort of weather there just had to be some snails out somewhere. Central Australia has upwards of 80 species of endemic, air-breathing land snails and almost certainly a handful of species yet to be described. In addition to these, there are several species that have not been observed for yonks but are likely to still be lurking under a fig tree or a rock somewhere just waiting for a proper Central Australian malacological field survey to come and find them. Due to their sedentary nature, our land snails exhibit extraordinarily high rates of endemism; the Semotrachia species that live at Emily Gap, are a separate species to the similar snails living under fig trees at Jessie Gap just a couple of kilometres down the road.  In these cases the entire population of each species can be found living under just two or three trees - one fire in the wrong spot and blammo! No more Semos. So they're intriguing little critters, and there is always something to learn.

Bingo!

A pair of calling Spinifexbirds Eremiornis carteri, distracted me for a few minutes. This is another handy species to be able to track down so close to town - what a site! As I continued downwards I stopped in a rocky patch that was a little bit clear of spinifex for a break. Almost immediately my eye was drawn to a tiny snail crawling along the edge of a rock - success! It was strange, but even after all the birdy success of the afternoon, I was more elated to have finally found some snails. Once I started looking, I found a second...and a third, and eventually over a dozen of the little buggers just sliding around, going about their business. Amazingly, I even got the ID correct on the first guess. I managed to get some great shots of them, and snail-man Mark Carter confirmed that they are Blue-horned Land Snail Pleuroxia adcockiana. They have a delicately textured shell, almost as if it has been engraved. There is a bit of cream and brown patterning going on, and the shell is gently laterally compressed. On the move, the snails carry the shell almost horizontally which looks quite odd at first but in the photos it actually looks quite streamlined.

Blue-horned Land Snail Pleuroxia adcockiana.  Cruisin'.

What is the collective noun for snails?

Tiny little buggers. It was very lucky to find them.

My day was complete. I descended the rest of the way back to the mulga at the foot of the mountains and crossed the calcrete barrier hills. As I arrived at the car I assumed that I'd used up all my wildlife luck for one day but Ilparpa still had another treat up its sleeve. As I slowly made my way back to Ilparpa Road along the sloppy back tracks, I slammed the brakes on as a pale raptor passed nonchalantly overhead. I was driving along the fenceline at the western extremity of the crown land at this point and was unable to turn the car quickly. I jumped out with the binoculars and had some goosebump-raising views of a Grey Falcon Falco hypoleucos, as it flew lazily between the Ghost Gums along the creek line and out of sight at the base of the ranges where I had just come from. These vanishingly rare birds seem to flirt with the outskirts of Alice Springs. There are usually a couple of sightings a year, but they are a species of such near-mythical rarity that it is always a thrill to see one, even so briefly.

After that little encounter, I was surely finished for the day. I barely remember the drive back to The Lab. My mind was still buzzing from the Grey Falcon sighting and filled with the sounds and smells of the hills and the rain.

What a bloody ripper of a day. My fingers are firmly crossed that we are in for a rainy winter.

Australian Ringneck with Aberrant Plumage Colouration

Australian Ringnecks Barnardius zonarius zonarius, the "Port Lincoln Parrot" sub-species. The bird on the right has  yellow down the back of the neck, about halfway down its back and extending part of the way onto the upper surface of each wing.

After a recent post about our famous white Crested Pigeon, I found this bird the very next day. At the sewage ponds in Alice Springs this Australian Ringneck Barnardius zonarius, was in a flock with 5 other birds. The bird in question instantly attracted my eye as bright speck of gold among his mainly green friends. I guess this is another one to put down to the vagaries of plumage genes.

It has to be said though; I think the golden-backed look could catch on. Keep an eye out and let me know if anyone else spots this bird around the poo ponds in coming weeks.

birdscentral@gmail.com