Night parakeet

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Night parakeet
Pezoporus occidentalis.jpg

Night Parakeet ( Pezoporus occidentalis )

Systematics
Order : Parrots (Psittaciformes)
Family : True parrots (Psittacidae)
Subfamily : Parakeets (Pezoporinae)
Genre : Parakeets ( Pezoporus )
Type : Night parakeet
Scientific name
Pezoporus occidentalis
( Gould , 1861)

The night parakeet ( Pezoporus occidentalis ), also known as the cave parakeet , is a rare species of parrot from the genus of the parakeets ( Pezoporus ).

features

The night parakeet reaches a size of 22 to 25 centimeters. It shows similarities with the parakeet, but differs from it by its shorter tail. The plumage is mainly yellowish-green, with each feather showing dark brown, black, and yellow stripes. The lower abdomen, thighs, and under tail-coverts are yellow. The under wing coverts are light green. The outer flags of the hand covers and the hand and arm wings are yellowish green. A light yellow wing edge can be seen on the underside of the hand and arm wings. The top of the control feathers is dark brown with pale yellowish and greenish shaft lines. The underside of the tail feathers is brownish. The outer tail feathers show clear yellow stripes. The beak is horn-colored. A narrow eye ring runs around the black iris. The feet are brown. The claws are shorter and less curved than other parakeet species. The habitus of the juvenile birds is hardly described. They should look similar to adult birds, but with darker plumage and a yellowish throat.

voice

The vocalizations consist of short, sharp screams and deep two-syllable or long-drawn melodic whistles. The alarm call is reminiscent of frog croaking.

distribution

Places where the night parakeet has been observed so far

There are fewer than fifty documented observations of the cave parakeet. Most of these sightings date back to before 1880. The observations were made in many regions of Inner Australia and include all states and territories of the outback. There were reliable observations, for example, in 1979, when a flock of four birds was seen at Lake Perigundi in the extreme southwest of South Australia. In 2005, a small squad was seen at a waterhole in Pilbara , Western Australia. In general, the nocturnal parakeet is a very difficult species to observe, as it is obviously nocturnal and, although it can fly, spends most of its time on the ground, where the undergrowth makes observation difficult. It is also very likely that it is nomadic, exploiting food sources opportunistically.

It is possible, however, that the area of ​​distribution can be narrowed down further: in 1990, a dead parakeet was found 200 kilometers away from the 2006 find, which apparently had fallen victim to traffic. 2013 succeeded the Australian wildlife filmmaker John Young, the Night parrot in the region of Lake Eyre in Queensland to find. He made photo, video and sound recordings of the bird that experts consider to be real. The exact location should be kept secret so as not to endanger the bird.

habitat

The nocturnal parakeet inhabits the Chenopodiac scrubland , the Hummock grassland with vegetation that consists predominantly of prickly head grasses and grasses of the genus Plechtrachne and the Mitchell grassland, which is dominated by the genus Astrebla .

Way of life

The nocturnal parakeet is nocturnal and searches for food individually for some time after sunset. The diet consists of seeds from various grasses, with the seeds of the Spinifex genus Triodia being preferred. He lives mostly on the ground and is good at running. During the day, it remains silent in the Spinifex vegetation. He is well camouflaged by his plumage pattern. He is a bad flier and during the day he only flies when there is danger. The flight is close to the ground and quite slow. During the night he can also cover longer distances in gliding flight. While searching for food, he visits water holes several times, drinks quickly and then disappears again. In severe droughts, it is likely to migrate to other areas.

Reproductive behavior

The breeding period is unknown, but presumably depends on the food supply. The nest is usually a chamber in the Spinifex bushes and has a diameter of 25 centimeters. It can be reached via a tunnel 8 centimeters in diameter. The ground is covered with leaves, blades of grass and small twigs. The clutch consists of four to five eggs. In one case, four young were observed in the nest. The eggs have a size of 25.2 × 19.6 mm. Further information on reproductive behavior is not available.

Existence and endangerment

Before a run-over specimen was found in 1990, the night parakeet was only known from 22 museum specimens. 21 of these date from the 19th century. Another, collected at Nichol Spring in Western Australia in 1912 , was in very poor condition and was later lost. There have been several unconfirmed sightings since then, including one in 1979 by ornithologist Shane A. Parker of the South Australian Museum in the far northwest of South Australia. In 1988, the Australian entrepreneur sat Dick Smith a reward of 50,000 dollars from the rediscovery of the night parakeet. In October 1990, the ornithologists Walter E. Boles , Max Thompson and Wayne Longmore were able to prove that the species still existed when they found a dead parakeet on a country road near Boulia in northwestern Queensland. As a result, at least five extensive search expeditions and two large-scale publicity campaigns were carried out in the 1990s, but they failed. In April 2005 it was again possible to observe three specimens at Minga Qwirriawirrie Well near the Fortescue Marshes within the Pilbara region in Western Australia, but without photographic evidence. Another search in the region between 2005 and 2006 did not yield any confirmation. In November 2006, Wildlife Service Rangers found a dead specimen in Queensland's Diamantina National Park that appeared to have collided with a fence weeks earlier. In May 2013, the Australian wildlife filmmaker John Young took the first photos of a live night parakeet, which he presented at a press conference in July 2013. Ornithologist Steve Murphy caught, photographed and filmed a living specimen at Easter 2015. In August 2015, these recordings were published by the daily newspaper The Australian . In 2017 the night parakeet was rediscovered in Western Australia.

The main threats are reenactment by predators such as foxes and feral cats, changed fire hazards, food competition with and degradation of the habitats near the water points by rabbits, and water scarcity as a result of overuse of the water points by feral camels. The disappearance of the night parakeet near Innamincka and Alice Springs is believed to be related to the arrival of feral cats in this region. A night parakeet nest was discovered in 2016, but was looted by a mulga snake . BirdLife International estimates the population at 50 to 250 specimens and classifies the night parakeet in the “endangered” category .

Systematics

The night parakeet was long considered the only representative of the genus Geopsittacus . Due to phylogenetic similarities between the night parakeet and the ground parakeet ( Pezoporus wallicus ), the species was placed in the genus Pezoporus in 1994 .

literature

  • Dominic Couzens : Rare Birds - Survivors, Evolution Losers and the Lost. Haupt Verlag, Bern 2011, ISBN 978-3-258-07629-4 .
  • Richard Schodde, IJ Mason, WWK Houston, A. Wells, Australian Biological Resources Study, CSIRO (Australia): Aves (Columbidae to Coraciidae). CSIRO Publishing, 1997, ISBN 9780643060371 .
  • Scott Weidensaul: The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking, and the Search for Lost Species. North Point Press (New York), 2002, ISBN 0-86547-668-3 , pp. 75-81.
  • Robert A. Davis, Brenden M. Metcalf: The Night Parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) in northern Western Australia: a recent sighting from the Pilbara Region. In: Emu. 108 (3), 2008, pp. 233-236.
  • Thomas Arndt: Lexicon of Parrots. Arndt Verlag, 2001.
  • Joseph M. Forshaw, Frank Knight: Parrots of the World: An Identification Guide. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey / Woodstock, United Kingdom, 2006, ISBN 978-0-691-09251-5 .
  • Nigel Collar: Night Parrot. In: J. Del Hoyo, A. Elliot, J. Sargatal (Eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 4: Sandgrouse to Cuckoos. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 1997, ISBN 8-48733-422-9 , p. 385.
  • Joseph M. Forshaw, PJ Fullagar, JI Harris: Specimens of the Night Parrot in museums throughout the world. In: Emu. 76 (3), CSIRO Publishing, 1976, pp. 120-126.
  • John Blyth: Night Parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) Interim Recovery Plan for Western Australia. 1996 to 1998. In: INTERIM RECOVERY PLAN NO. 4. Department of Conservation and Land Management Western Australian Threatened Species and Communities Unit, March 1996, archived from the original on March 1, 2012 ; accessed on May 31, 2019 .
  • Joseph M. Forshaw, Frank Knight: Vanished and Vanishing Parrots. Cornell University Press, 2017, ISBN 978-1-50170-469-7 , pp. 102-108.
  • Penny Olsen: Night Parrot: Australia's Most Elusive Bird. CSIRO Publishing, 2018, ISBN 978-1-48630-298-7 .

Web links

Commons : Night Parakeet ( Pezoporus occidentalis )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Couzon, p. 219.
  2. ↑ Couzon, p. 220.
  3. ↑ Australian naturalist catches night parrot on film BBC News , July 4, 2013, accessed on July 5, 2013
  4. ↑ Night parrot sighting in Western Australia shocks birdwatching world
  5. ↑ Leeton, Peter RJ, Christidis, Leslie, Westerman, Michael & Boles, Walter E .: Molecular phylogenetic relationships of the Night Parrot ( Geopsittacus occidentalis ) and the Ground Parrot (Pezoporus wallicus). In: Auk. 111 (4), 1994, pp. 833-843 PDF file full text .