The Fastest Parrot in the World: April Bird of the Month

From Gladstone Weatherstone’s Notebook:  The Swift Parrot

Swift Parrot (C) Wilson Lennard 2015 Birdlifephotography.org.au

Photo courtesy Wayne Weatherstone

This is the fourth in a monthly series inspired by Gladstone Weatherstone, a dedicated and knowledgeable amateur naturalist who lived on his property Lyndfield Park near Gunning from 1941 until his death in 1996.  He had a particular interest in birds.  Between 1962 and 1981 Gladstone  recorded bird sightings on his farm and its near surrounds in a notebook we still have today.   Each month we look at one of the birds that Gladstone recorded, try to place it in context and see if we can glean any lessons about the recent history of our district.

Gladstone’s notebook entries for April 1966 centre on some “Parrakeets” he could not identify on first sighting.  Although he was soon able to name the birds, Gladstone has left us with another puzzle we shall probably never get to the bottom of.  We will get to that unsolved question later.  His notes about the mystery birds are:

1st    Parrakeets which are rarely seen here flying over today. 
11th    Flocks of unidentified Parrots flying over but flying too high to identify.
12th    Parrots previously recorded, identified as Swift Parrots having captured one for close observation.  These continued flying through for some days.  They are well named for they fly very fast.”

The Tasmanian Visitors – Fastest Parrots in the World

Image © Wilson Lennard 2017 birdlifephotography.org.au

 Swift Parrots breed and nest in tree hollows only in Tasmania.  Nowhere else will do for them and, as we shall see, their sole Tasmanian breeding habitat is becoming much less appealing and productive for them.

They are the fastest parrots in the world.  The birds seen by Gladstone were doing what Swift Parrots habitually do.  After nesting in Tasmanian Blue Gum forests during October-November, they fly long distances across south-eastern Australia from around January onwards in search of food.

They have much in common with January’s Bird of the Month, the Regent Honeyeater.  Both are highly mobile nectar feeders that prefer fertile lowland woodlands with the richest sources of food.  Also, both are in trouble and the subjects of long-term intensive recovery efforts

Swift Parrots need good stands of profusely flowering eucalypts.  For carbohydrate they particularly like immature lerps, the sweet waxy covering produced by immature psyllid insects.  Sometimes they choose to eat only the insects themselves for the protein they provide.  Their visits to different places in mainland Australia can be intermittent because the food sources they need do not always appear regularly each year. 

In NSW they are mostly seen on the coast and south west slopes.  They are not currently recorded, even as a rare visitor, on Birds of the Upper Lachlan Shire.  Dr Tony Saunders, who prepares this list, notes that there is some suitable habitat in the shire for this species but he can find no recent records of any sightings of them, nor has he seen one himself.

World’s Fastest Parrot - Fast Disappearing in Australia

Swift Parrot.  (C) Sonja Ross 2015 birdlifephotography.org.au

The Swift Parrot is a critically endangered species.  A December 2019 article in  AUSTRALIAN birdlife called “Illustrating Extinction” says that, of the 20 birds most likely to disappear in the next 20 years, the Swift Parrot comes in at lucky number 13.  In 2001 there were estimated to be no more than 1000 breeding pairs in the wild.

There are three main causes of this drastic decline in numbers.  In their critical Tasmanian breeding habitat, logging in state forests and other vegetation clearing has dramatically reduced the numbers of tree hollows they rely on for nesting.  Further, their nests are being predated on by sugar gliders which are not native to Tasmania (a big surprise for the researchers who first discovered this grim fact).  Finally, when they fly swiftly off to the mainland, the stands of nectar and lerp bearing gums these birds need are harder to find.

Hope for the Swift Parrot

Image: National Library of Australia

 There is a lot to be critical about when considering our collective efforts to preserve our native birds.  The Swift Parrot (pictured right in a painting by First Fleet naval officer George Raper 1769-1796) was readily visible to the first white colonists.  Now it is critically endangered.

That said, government organisations, NGOs, community groups and individual land managers are working to turn the situation around.  

Environmental restoration and regenerative farming programs such as those implemented for Gladstone's Bird of the Month for January, the Regent Honeyeater, also benefit  the Swift Parrot.  Work done locally and elsewhere to create Superb Parrot habitat will also be appreciated by Swift Parrots. 

Birdlife Australia’s “Woodland Birds for Biodiversity” project aims to restore old and create new habitat for the Swift Parrot.  Also, the ANU is leading a 6 year project focused specifically on habitat creation for Swift Parrots in two critical regions of NSW – the Riverina and Central Coast.  There is also significant work underway to improve the design of artificial nesting boxes so they can repel sugar gliders.

If You See a Swift Parrot

Each year the Swift Parrot Recovery Team relies on the involvement of volunteers to identify areas the birds are visiting and what resources they are using. This information directly helps the recovery effort for this species. Mainland surveys aim to cover their migratory winter range and held on the 3rd weekend in May and the first weekend in August every year.
 
All information helps and the Recovery Team is also very interested to receive sighting information of these birds outside the survey dates.  If you see a Swift Parrot please contact the Swift Parrot Volunteer Survey Coordinator, Chris Tzaros (Birds Australia) freecall 1800 66 57 66 or 03 9347 0757 c.tzaros@birdsaustralia.com.au;

A Historical Mystery

 How did Gladstone catch the fastest parrot in the world so he could examine it more closely?  His son John does not know how he did it so we can only speculate – which I am now going to do.

Gladstone, in common with many bird lovers (or “oologists”) of his era, collected eggs, nests and skins of birds so he could know them better .  Some well off enthusiasts employed workers to climb trees and shoot birds for them.  Others did it for themselves.  Gladstone was in the second “do it yourself” category. 

We know that Gladstone could climb a Silky Oak when aged around 80.  As a sprightly 65 year old in 1966 he would have been very well able to lie in wait with a net in the upper branches of a flowering gum to catch a Swift Parrot.   Or perhaps, as John suggests, he was able to catch a parrot that had somehow become incapacitated.  Alas, we shall never know.

Above right:  Oologist at work.  Unidentified man in a gum tree collecting eggs / Archibald James Campbell 1853-1929 National Library of Australia

Further Information

You can read about Birdlife Australia’s work on the Swift Parrot recovery program at Woodland Birds for Biodiversity

All the birds discussed in this series so far, and many of those to come, have been adversely affected by widespread vegetation clearing and similar environmental threats.  The recent widespread damaging fires have also destroyed large swathes of prime habitat.

The federal government has initiated an independent review of the legislation which determines how decisions are made on projects which may affect the environment.  You can read about this and make a submission if you would like to at Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

You can obtain a short biography of Gladstone Weatherstone in PDF format by requesting it from bobgunninghistoryblog@gmail.com.  You can also request earlier articles in this series and elect to be sent those to be published in coming months in PDF from the same address.

References

The main sources used in writing this article were:
 “The Australian Bird Guide” Peter Menkhorst et al.  CSIRO Publishing
Birds of the Upper Lachlan Shire by Tony Saunders“ 
Australian Birdlife: Profile of the Swift Parrot
Wilderness Society: Swift Parrot May 2019
NSW Office of Environment and Heritage: Swift Parrot

Thank You

Thank you to:

• Nicki Taws, Program Specialist and Ecologist, Greening Australia;

• Dr Tony Saunders. President of the Crookwell Native Flora and Fauna Club;

Tony and Nicki reviewed drafts of this article and contributed helpful improvements.   Any sillinesses or shortcomings you might find are down to me.

Thank you also to John Weatherstone for providing a transcription of Gladstone’s Notebook and fielding lots of follow up questions about Gladstone related matters.