Rare parrot flies north in search of food

Photograph reproduced from Wikipedia under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. 

Birdwatchers in mainland Australia are being treated to a rare sight: flocks of swift parrots have been spied in south-east New South Wales.

The species, which breeds on the island state of Tasmania, is endangered with only about 1,000 pairs remaining in the wild. The birds normally migrate between Tasmania and the west of the Great Dividing Range (the mountain range that runs along the eastern seaboard), but scientists believe the drought has forced them to migrate further north than usual in search of food.

You can find out more via this story on the ABC news site.

Bits and bobs about birds

Here's a few newsy items that haven't made our print edition this week, but are nonetheless interesting -- and birdy:

• While the south-east of Australia endures the worst drought in living memory, there appears to be a bird boom in the Australian desert -- helped in part by recent wet season rains. If you want to know what a birdwatching trip to the outback is like, check out this website -- the photographs are stunning.

• Valentine's Day might be over (you did remember, didn't you?), but you can still take advantage of the World Owl Trust's special offer: "adopt" two owls for the price of one. There's a range of owls available, including barn owls and Ural owls. What a hoot!

• A sea eagle has been spotted in England for the first time in 200 years. The nine-month old female bird is one of 15 birds that were released in Fife, Scotland, last year as part of a major reintroduction programme.

• National Geographic has published an interesting article entitled Where Are All the Migratory Birds Going? which suggests that fewer birds are returning to their breeding grounds every year because of poisoning by pesticides, habitat loss resulting from destructive agriculture and other human pressures. The article has quite an American bias, but it's still alarming to find out that in the Americas alone "more than half of all migrating bird species have dwindled in number in the past 40 years".