Help save Black Cockatoos!

During the Parrot International Symposium Rosemary Low showed us this remarkable video of a an Australian couple, David and Deidre Patterson, who are working hard to save two distinct subspecies of black cockatoos from going extinct. In the video they tell about the importance of the area next to their property, Helms block, for the black cockatoos, which is a key area for food and nesting sites and its survival is imperative for the release of the cockatoos that they rehabilitate. We were alarmed to learn that the moratorium on logging this area made in 2001 has been overturned.

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Macaws flying over Medellin, Colombia!

Today we received a wonderful video from Carlos Esteban Lara Vásquez who studies the macaws of Medellin for us. The video was gracefully made available by Carolina Gomez. In the video you can see 5 macaws enjoying some fruit in a tree (Spathodea campanulata) after which they take flight. From the flight pattern you could deduct that their is one pair of Scarlet macaws (Ara macao). These are the birds that fly parallel and synchronised to each other. They are more loosely followed by what might be their offspring. This supports the notion that the macaws have been successfully reproducing within the city habitat. The two other birds are more loosely associated. One of the birds is a green-winged macaw (Ara chloroptera). The first of its kind to be recorded in Medellin!

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Night parrot find causes controversy in Australia

ON SATURDAY 17 September 2006, Robert ‘Shorty’ Cupitt, the ranger-on-duty of Diamantina National Park in south-west Queensland, was grading an interior road of the reserve when the blade of his vehicle exposed the yellow underbelly of a bird he didn’t recognise. As it eventually transpired, it was a deceased Night Parrot— only the second specimen to be found in nearly 100 years.

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Eyre Peninsula cockatoos near extinction

Eyre Peninsula cockatoo threathend by sever droughtThe South Australian Environment Department is on a mission to save Eyre Peninsula yellow-tailed black cockatoos, which are near extinction because of drought conditions.

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Native birds not impressed with Ring-necked parakeets

Ring-necked parakeet at its nest in AmsterdamWith the rise of the Ring-necked parakeet (Psittacula krameri) in the Netherlands the concerns about this alien invader increases. Birders in general are not much interested in introduced species. Ring-necked parakeets, Mandarin ducks (Aix galericulata), Hooded merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) are persona non grata in the Dutch avifauna and they just do not count on your bird list.

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