Western Ground Parrot (Pezoporus wallicus flaviventris) Photo: Brent Barrett

WA's endangered Western Ground Parrot is headed the way of the Dodo, a national survey has found.

The State of Australia's Birds 2008, compiled by Australia's oldest bird conservation group Birds Australia, reveals the critically endangered parrot is now extinct at two sites.

The only apparently stable population is at a third site, in Cape Arid National Park, near Esperance.

Birds Australia found that, for unknown reasons, the parrot's decline at Waychinicup, near Albany, had continued, with no birds having been heard there since late 2003.

In the 1990s, ground parrot numbers were on the rise at a monitoring site in Fitzgerald River National Park, between Jerramungup and Ravensthorpe.

However, the population has now declined so drastically that no birds were heard in 2008. Observations at other sites in the park revealed dangerously low numbers.

In 2003, when Birds Australia first complied its avian report card, WA's three other threatened species - the Noisy Scrub-bird, Western Bristlebird and Western Whipbird - had been downlisted from endangered to vulnerable, thanks to successful recovery programs.

However, the situation for the three species again looks bleak.

Bushfires since 2001 in the Mt Manypeaks/Two People Bay area near Albany reduced the Noisy Scrub-bird's breeding habitat by more than 60 per cent. Hence, the bird is back on the endangered list.

The fires also derailed the recovery of the two other threatened birds in the area.

Almost all the known habitat for the western heath species of the threatened Western Whipbird is located there, and the blazes sent that bird flying back onto the endangered list.

The Western Bristlebird was also affected, but remains in the vulnerable category, because significant numbers remain in Fitzgerald River National Park.

The State of Australia's Birds 2008 will be launched tonight in Canberra by Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.