Not found: the Orange Bellied parrot. Image by Ron Knight A bird count conducted in the Limestone Coast region has failed to find any trace of the orange-bellied parrot.
The parrots spend winter in South Australia and Victoria before migrating to Tasmania for summer.
South Australian recovery coordinator Bob Green says they are often hard to spot but volunteers were buoyed by increased sightings of other rare species.
"Based on last year where we got 118 blue wing parrots and 14 elegant parrots, this year we've had a bumper year with 301 blue wing parrots and 144 elegant parrots," he said.
"They're a very similar species and they occur in similar types of habitat, so the good thing with an increase in the number of those is it's showing the resources are there."
Volunteers for the count were stationed in areas from Nelson on the Victorian border though to the Murray mouth.