Wildlife experts on Thursday have proved that feather from the "Night parrot", which is one of the rarest birds of all has been found in South Australia, residing for more than a century. The "Night parrot " that is ranked among the world's rarest avian species was observerd to go into extinction until an intrepid Australian Naturalist provided a photo evidence of the bird in Queensland state in 2013. It also is known to be spotted in Western Australia as well.
The experts behind this Queensland sighting John Young and fellow ecologist Kieth Bellchambers from the Australian Wildlife Conservancy have now shown that it has been found in South Australia as well.
The duo found the feather from a small, yellowish –green bird in the nest of a Zebra finch around remote Lake Eyre while following up the blurry images of the camera. "Keith and I looked at many zebra finches' nests before and finally an unmistakable small green feather appeares within the fresh base lining of one of the nests," Young told AFP.
He added that people exhibit excitement in different ways and in his case, Young was shaking uncontrollably with excitement. While, Keith was holding his head in utter disbelief.
Young has confirmed that the feather belongs to the night parrot. "The freshness of the feather indicated that the feather might have been collected "within hundred meters in past few weeks," Young said. However, the cherry on the cake came after the curator of ornithology at the Western Australian Museum confirmed their result.
Their next step was to trace the distribution of species that was last recorded at Lake Eyre in 1883 and assess the population size using song meters camera traps.
Researchers feared that for decades nocturnal desert dwelling parrot was in top extinction between 1912 and 1979 and only a handful were found since evidence in 2013. In 2012, it was rated as the most mysterious bird.
Unfortunately in Australia, Night parrot is declining in the wild as there is around 50-250 birds remaining as per the International Union for the conservation of nature.
