Drivers to look out for scavenging parrot
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 12:19 
Superb Parrot foraging on an Elm tree. Image by Stuart Harris.Drivers are being asked to look out for an endangered parrot that enjoys feasting on grain spilt from trucks.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service says it has had a report that dozens of superb parrots have recently been killed on a roadside near Binalong.
Spokesman Stuart Cohen says the danger comes when the birds eat too much.
"The superb parrot like most parrots would see grain on the side of the road, have a free feed and fill up with grain so much so that they become heavy and cumbersome," he said.
"When a vehicle does come by they try to take off and they just can't avoid the cars, so what happens is they end up being killed by fast travelling vehicles."
Mr Cohen says grain transporters can also help save the superb parrots.
"While farmers are stripping grain crops and transporting them around the countryside from the farmabcwire.send-wallace.news
to the silos, we're asking truck drivers and farmers to ensure that their trucks are well covered so that we don't end up spilling grain."
"It doesn't take a great deal of effort and even for short distances.
"When you consider that there's possibly less than 5,000 pairs of superb parrots in the wild, losing up to 40 birds, this is just a report that we've had, we haven't been able to confirm this ourselves, but 40 is a big loss to the species and losing any of them is bad when the numbers are that low."