Swift parrot hatchlings on North Bruny Island bring new hope of resurgence for endangered birds
Updated
Scientists working to save the critically endangered swift parrot are making other discoveries along the way, including how fast they can fly.
And for the first time, they have captured unprecedented video of the eggs and hatchlings in purpose-built nest boxes and carved hollows, nestlings being fed, and a fledgling leaving a nest.
Saving the swift parrot is not easy. As nomadic migrants, they breed in different places each year, they are preyed upon by sugar gliders, and the hollows in old trees they depend on for nests are becoming scarce.
But against these odds, scientists in Tasmania have found a way to boost the survival chances of the swift parrot. They created parrot nurseries in a safe place with plenty of food.
Conservation biologist Dejan Stojanovic and his Team Swift Parrot colleagues used a decade of monitoring data to predict where Tasmanian blue gums would flower, the food trees for breeding swift parrots.
That led them to North Bruny Island, just south of Hobart.
The other advantage of Bruny Island is that it is free of sugar gliders that were introduced to mainland Tasmania more than a century ago.
Team Swift Parrot installed 300 nesting boxes in the forests of North Bruny in time for the parrots' arrival this spring.
In addition, volunteer arborists carved 50 new hollows in trees.
Now all this hard work is paying off with a bumper breeding season.
Chicks are hatching not only in natural hollows, but for the first time in nest boxes and carved hollows as well.
So far, more than 20 nest boxes and seven carved hollows are occupied, with new nests found each day.
Dr Stojanovic has now managed to capture the first images of freshly hatched birds in boxes and carved hollows, nestlings being fed and a fledgling leaving a nest.
By attaching GPS trackers to swift parrots, he hopes to see how their breeding success is affected by food availability.
He tracked parent birds travelling 11 kilometres in one trip, back to the Tasmanian mainland, to find enough food to feed their chicks.
Only one of their five hatchlings survived.
Swift parrot flight speed clocked for first time
The GPS trackers also reveal that swift parrots exceed suburban speed limits. One male was clocked at 88 kilometres an hour, which Dr Stojanovic said was the first actual speed record for a swift parrot.
"It's pretty fast. I don't know of any other parrots that can beat that."
Next breeding season, Team Swift Parrot want to install nesting boxes on the Tasmanian mainland, where sugar gliders can eat up to half of the nesting females each year.
The researchers are trialling ways to make the nest boxes 'possum-proof'.
One prototype to be tested is a light-activated gate that closes the entrance to a swift parrot's nest at night, to prevent raids by nocturnal sugar gliders.
Watch Catalyst at 8pm tonight for more about the efforts to save swift parrots.
Topics: birds, conservation, environment, hobart-7000
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