The lost Paradise Parrot - More bits and pieces

 Further to my article in The Weekend Australian about a new book on the Paradise Parrot by Tony Pridham and historic accounts by naturalists Cyril Jerrard and Eric Zillmann, further scribblings are offered about this fascinating bird. Thanks to Tony for some more of his wonderful paintings reproduced in this blog post.

Jerrard saw his parrots in the Boondooma area of the South Burnett. The nearest town is Proston, 30km away. For the past century since he rediscovered the Paradise Parrot in 1920 (it was thought to have become extinct around the turn of last century) it has been widely reported that the birds were in the Gayndah area. Gayndah is in fact 60km away in a straight line and much further by road. The discovery year is also often given wrongly as 1921, not 1920.

Jerrard’s sightings – 36 over 8 years recorded by him and neighbours – were primarily along the 12km-long Jerrards Road (then called Weir Weir Road), the adjoining Manar Road, and around the Manar cattle station. I camped overnight along Jerrards Road earlier this month and spent time checking out both roads. I was surprised by the extent of excellent, intact woodland habitat. The low, rounded termite mounds used for nesting by the species were abundant. Following several years of good rain, there was no shortage of seeding native grasses. It was not difficult to imagine a pair of parrots lurking in there somewhere.

One of Jerrard's parrot sites along Jerrards Road

What strikes me is the absence of interest by the ornithological community in this historic site. Even in the 1920s, when the parrots were scarce but regular at Jerrard’s Boondooma site, the only outsider to visit the area was Alec Chisholm, the celebrated journalist-naturalist whose writings in the late-1910s alerted Jerrard and the birding world generally to the precarious predicament of the species.

Jerrard and Chisholm presumably decided to keep its whereabouts secret out of concern for the depradations of egg-collectors and aviculturalists. As Tony Pridham notes in his book, Cyril’s Parrot – Cyrill Jerrard and the extinct Paradise Parrot: “It was just a case of Cyril and his parrots. This situation appears implausible in today’s world of competitive birdwatching.” Even back then, it would not have been difficult for those with the will to track down Jerrard and his parrots.

The small rounded anthills favoured by the parrot - along Jerrards Road

When checking ebird prior to this visit, there was a not a single report, historic of otherwise, anywhere near Jerrard’s Paradise Parrot sites. Like others, I had given scant thought to the matter. It was Pridham’s book that drew my attention to the area, which is easy to locate. (The ebird list for my visit, showing the location is at this link.) During an afternoon and morning along the largely unfenced Jerrards Road, I did not see a single other vehicle. Plenty of nice birds were about including Common Bronzewing, Red-winged Parrot and White-throated Nightjar. The book publishes Jerrard’s diaries and notes, which point to observation sites such as a cypress grove near a small hill along Jerrards Road; that spot was obvious.

Common Bronzewing

Red-winged Parrot

I noticed when leaving the area, a good deal more suitable woodland with a plethora of termite mounds was present not far away along the Boondooma-Proston road. However, the antbed-studded habitat favoured by the Paradise Parrot is and presumably always was limited and fragmented within the south-east Queensland range of the species. On the way to Boondooma, I drove through extensive areas of woodland in state forest north-east of Munduberra, and termite mounds were conspicuously scarce.

One of many factors that likely led to the demise of the parrot was the invasion of prickly pear over much of its range. Patches of the exotic pest remain in the area today.

Prickly Pear along Manar Road

Interestingly, Jerrard notes that paradise parrots sometimes were found in agricultural crops including corn, and particularly stubble fields with millet. Sometimes they fed with other parrot species. The birds appeared to be comfortably at home in the vicinity of farm homesteads. Given sufficient time to overcome the many adversary factors working against them, the parrots may have been able to adjust. Those factors range from habitat destruction and reduced seed availability due to grazing pressure, to the widespread destruction of anthills for tennis court and house flooring. Extensive areas of woodland were being cleared not far from Manar Road during my visit.

Woodland clearing this week near Jerrard's sites

Jerrard took the first and only photographs of the Paradise Parrot at a nesting mound in 1922. He describes the nest in detail in his notes. The nest cavity was roughly circular, about 40cm across and 17cm high. The cellular interior of the mound had broken down, the chipped away material serving as a nest bed. The 22cm long entrance tunnel was drilled through a hard crust of mound; the 4cm entrance hole took 7 weeks to excavate. The eggs were pinkish white, oval-ended at both ends. The mound was free of termites.

Jerrard's nesting mound

Before heading to Boondooma, I called in on Eric Zillmann at his Bundaberg retirement village. Eric is approaching his 102^nd birthday and his memory of times long gone is sound. He found paradise parrots in 1935, seven years after Jerrard’s last report, and had them under observation until 1938; he says his father saw them as late as 1943. Eric was a teenage farmhand at the time, but keenly interested in natural history, helping his father muster cattle for tick dipping at Wallaville, near Gin Gin.

His recollection of the birds, and of an anthill nest he found, “are as clear in my mind today as when I saw them”, he tells me. He identified the birds and nest with the help of a kindly teacher who was a keen birder, and referencing a field guide (John Leach’s Australian Bird Book, 1911).

Roads have been named in honour of both Cyril Jerrard 

and Eric Zillmann

I go back a long way with Eric. In 1971, as a teenage birder, I hitch-hiked from Brisbane to Gin Gin – not far from where he had his parrots – to join a Queensland Ornithological Society birding campout being led by Eric. I hiked through the night for 10km to get to the site. Eric and his wife  insisted I dispense with my meagre tent and sleep in their caravan annex. They would not hear of me dining on my then trademark tins of baked beans, insisting I join them for meals. He showed me my first Eastern Grass Owl and Black-chinned Honeyeater. I have maintained occasional contact with him since.

Eric Zillmann

There are many similarities between the parrot observations of Eric and Jerrard. The birds were generally found in pairs, in summer, feeding on grass seeds beside tracks. They would fly short distances when flushed and allow close approach. Jerrard describes their feeding in his notes: “It was pretty to watch the dextrous way they seized the grass stalks by the butts and rapidly moved their bills along the seed heads which were chewed for a second or two and then released.”

I visited a spot given to me by Bundaberg birder Chris Barnes that he and Eric visited several years ago, where Eric said his parrots had frequented. It’s not far off Currajong Creek Road and near Zillmann Road: like Jerrard, Eric has a road named after him. The spot today is in the midst of a sea of macadamia tree plantations. Although areas of woodland remain in places, I saw just a handful of termite mounds in a small dry patch west of Gin Gin.

Eric Zillmann's parrot site today - macadamia nut plantation

Eric echoes what was evident during my visit to Boondooma. He said the area frequented by his birds was full of anthills, but the suitable habitat was restricted and other areas of woodland in the region were unsuitable. “It was only about a mile and a bit wide and not long. The bird was known to others in the area who called it the anthill parrot. The paradise parrot had to have lots of anthills. Think of a cricket pitch length between each anthill and mounds in every direction. That’s what the place was like.”

The naturalist John Gilbert collected the first Paradise Parrot specimens in 1844 in the Yandilla area on the eastern Darling Downs. That site is close to the birding hotspots of Dunmore and Western Creek state forests, which are today visited frequently by birders. Here too are extensive areas of woodland, with termite mounds in some spots. We could do worse than to keep an eye out.

Paradise Parrot country - Queensland's South Burnett

Paradise Parrot - lost, found, lost again: observations by Cyril Jerrard and Eric Zillmann

 The following is a transcript of my story published in The Weekend Australia of 22-23 Deceember, 2024

The young grazier and wildlife enthusiast suspected he was on to something special. In December 1920, Cyril Jerrard was riding his horse through the woodlands of the South Burnett Valley in south-east Queensland when he heard an unfamiliar musical “whit whit” call. A pair of slender, long-tailed parrots flew up from the ground.

Jerrard had rediscovered the paradise parrot, regarded by many as one of the world’s most beautiful birds. His notes and diaries about multiple encounters with the parrot over several years are a treasure trove of information. Jerrard’s century-old scribblings about the little-known paradise parrot, the only species on mainland Australia to have become extinct since European settlement, are published in a new book to be launched next week.

“Cyril’s Parrots – Cyril Jerrard and the extinct Paradise Parrot” is penned by Tony Pridham, a leading Australian wildlife artist. The parrot is brought vibrantly to life in paintings based on Pridham’s meticulous study of museum specimens and Jerrard’s notes. Some of those paintings are reproduced in this blog post.

The explorer-naturalist John Gilbert discovered the species in 1844 near Yandilla on the Darling Downs, west of Toowoomba. Gilbert was collecting specimens for renowned British ornithologist John Gould. When dispatching specimens of the parrot to Gould in London, Gilbert described it as “without exception the most beautiful of the whole tribe”.

Gilbert was killed a year later when he was speared by Aborigines while on an expedition to northern Australia led by Ludwig Leichardt. In the same year, 1845, Gould formally described the parrot, giving it the scientific name pulcherrimus, which translates as “multicoloured and superlatively beautiful”; Gould said the species was an “object of no ordinary interest”.

The slippery road to extinction began soon after. Many parrots were shot for museum and private collections. Others were trapped for aviary enthusiasts, who complained that none survived in captivity more than a few months. Woodland habitat was cleared for agriculture. Habitat change followed altered fire regimes after the departure of Aborigines. The woodlands were choked by an invasion of exotic prickly pear.

The birds nest in termite mounds, popularly known as anthills, which were bulldozed for house flooring and tennis court base. With the nest hole close to the ground, birds were vulnerable to introduced foxes and cats. As Pridham observes: “It was indeed the death of a thousand cuts.”

Jerrard writes in his notes: “The most fatal change of all for the seed-eating parrot was that the nutritious native cereals, like oat or kangaroo grass, were dying out under overstocking by sheep and cattle.” By the end of the 1800s the bird was scarce. The federation drought of the early-1900s seemingly wiped out the survivors; it was widely thought to have became extinct around the turn of last century.

Cyril Jerrard

The parrot was restricted to woodland in the interior of south-east Queensland. In 1918, journalist-naturalist Alec Chisholm penned a newspaper article, noting the parrot once occurred in “considerable numbers” but this “attractive little Queenslander has been utterly wiped out”, although he hoped that “maybe a few” survived.

Indeed they had. Jerrard was given a copy of the article. It was on his mind as he worked the family property north of the Boondooma district two years later. Jerrard recalls the moment he found his parrots: “I drew rein and followed with my eyes two pretty birds – parrots unmistakably…” They allowed close approach. Jerrard observed the male was “exceedingly beautiful”; the female “pretty but more modest of garb”; both were “very graceful in their shape and movements”.

Jerrard penned an essay in 1924 which he intended to publish but didn’t get around to it. It is reproduced in Pridham’s book, described by the author as a “precious document that gives us by far the most detailed and personal description of the birds from life”. Jerrard recalls a nesting event in 1922 that resulted in the only photographs taken of the parrot. He had checked scores of anthills for the tell-tale small holes that parrots drill as entrances to nest hollows deep inside anthills. He eventually found birds excavating a hole, a task taking seven weeks to complete.

Cyril Jerrard at the parrot nesting mound

Jerrard set up a hide. With his ancient Kodak Premo camera primed, he waited. The male bird landed on the anthill, obliging for the first photograph of the species. Writes Jerrard: “It was one of the supreme moments of my life.” Then as camera plates were changed, the male moved to the nest hole, peering in, as the female landed: “Oh kind fortune! I fired again, both birds posing, for just the instant required.” It was the only image ever captured of a female paradise parrot or a pair, although Jerrard managed a few more of the male. Nobody else has photographed the species.

It became evident after several weeks that the eggs had not hatched. Jerrard opened the anthill, finding five rotten eggs. Speculating that the precariously small population had led to inbreeding and egg infertility, he lamented: “I hoped to photograph the young birds when they became fledglings, and then to see them prosper and help repopulate the district.”

Jerrard enlisted the help of neighbours in spotting parrots. His diaries record a total of 36 encounters over eight years through the 1920s, indicating low numbers. Old bushmen talked about how the bird, which they called the anthill parrot, had been numerous. Most 1920s observations were of a single pair, with an occasional small flock with young. The parrots fed on grass seed by tracks: “They court notice by feeding and nesting in places which are particularly open to observation by man.”

Jerrard noted that a colourful seed-eating finch, the diamond firetail, was common locally. The finch today is also absent from the area - further indication that reduced food sources due to grazing was a key factor in the parrot’s demise. Paradise parrots sometimes fed in millet and other grain fields, however, being “not slow to avail themselves of a new food supply provided by man”, Jerrard wrote. A case of too little too late perhaps: his last recorded sighting was by a neighbour in 1928.

The iconic image of the parrot pair on the nest

Most of Jerrard’s birds were along what was then called Weir Weir Road, since renamed Jerrards Road in his honour, and the adjoining Manar Road. Visited last week by Inquirer, Jerrards Road appears much as it did a century ago – a little-used dirt track flanked by woodland and dotted with a plethora of termite mounds. Seeding native grasses, much loved by the parrots, were abundant following years of good rainfall. From information in Jerrard’s diaries, it is possible to locate precisely feeding places frequented by the parrots.

Jerrards Road last week

After Jerrard found his birds in 1920, he alerted Alec Chisholm, the journalist who rang the alarm bells two years earlier. Chisholm travelled to Boondooma, saw the parrots and published accounts of Jerrard’s sightings. Despite international interest in the fate of the parrot by then, nobody else ventured to the South Burnett to see the birds, suggesting Jerrard and Chisholm kept their whereabouts a secret, presumably due to concern about aviculturalists who offered huge rewards for a captive pair. Jerrard’s stamping ground remains little-known to this day.

Seven years after the last Bondooma sighting, 80km to the north-east, paradise parrots were again spotted. Eric Zillmann, like Jerrard a farmhand and wildlife enthusiast, observed birds on multiple occasions on horseback between 1935 and 1938. The then teenager saw them at Wallaville near Gin Gin, inland from Bundaberg, while helping his father muster cattle.

Speaking at home in a Bundaberg retirement village this week, the sprightly 101-year-old’s memory is clear: “The parrots were seen every time we went cattle dipping. Once a month in summer, when the ticks are bad, always on the ground on the edge of the track. They fly a short way and drop down again.” This behaviour mirrors that described by Jerrard.

Eric Zillmann in Bundaberg last week

Zillmann recalls the birds’ appearance: “The brilliant red on the male’s wings flashing, the brown and green, the female a bit more dull.” In 1938 he found a nest with eggs in a razed anthill. Zillmann was one of a party of workers tasked with removing 13 truckloads of anthill for tennis court base - an indication of the extent of loss of the birds’ nesting refuges. Anthills are scarce in the Gin Gin area today; Zillmann’s parrot haunts along Currajong Farm Road are lost in a sea of macadamia nut plantations.

While in Papua New Guinea as a serviceman in 1943, Zillmann was told in a letter from his mother: “Your father said to tell you the parrots are still there.” It was also in 1943 that Jerrard drowned in a farm dam at the age of 54 at Boondooma. In 1963, Zillmann tracked down the famous anthill where Jerrard’s birds were photographed four decades earlier; it collapsed finally in the early-1970s. The natural history community’s always scanty links to the paradise paradise are fading. Eric Zillmann, who was awarded an OAM in 1999 for service to the “observation, recording and promotion of Australia's natural history”, is the only person alive who has seen the bird.

No paradise parrots have been reliably recorded since Zillmann’s time, despite numerous claims of sightings. Scores of expeditions have been mounted. Such is the level of interest that when a convincing claim was made in 1990, three expeditions headed off, one led by Queensland Government minister Pat Comben; more than 130,000 square kilometres were combed. Like other reports, it was a false alarm. In the early 1980s, controversial North Queensland naturalist John Young claimed to have discovered paradise parrots nesting in woodland near Ingham; searches failed to find birds or supporting evidence.

John Young

The refusal by many to accept that the Holy Grail of the bird world is extinct recalls ongoing debate about the fate of the thylacine. Although unlikely, there remains a slim chance that the parrot is holding out in remote places.

The closest relative of the paradise parrot is the golden-shouldered parrot. Once common in the savannah woodlands of Cape York in north Queensland, its population has been reduced to a few hundred and continues to fall. The causes are similar: reduced grass seed supply due to grazing and habitat changes forced by altered fire regimes. Says Eric Zillmann: “I hope the golden-shouldered doesn’t go the same way as the paradise parrot.”

Golden-shouldered Parrot

Solomon Islands 2024: Part 3 - Guadalcanal Island

 

Blyth's Hornbill

The bustling Solomon Islands capital of Honiara on Guadalcanal - best-known as the site for some of the most significant naval battles of World War II - was the base for our visits to Kolombangara Island and Rennell Island in October as a guest of Tourism Solomons. I had birded Guadalcanal previously and was happy to be reacquainted with its avian inhabitants. Our first Guadalcanal foray during this visit to the Solomons was a quick stop at the Botanic Gardens after returning to Honiara from Gizo. A pair of Superb Fruit-Doves showed nicely here and Island Imperial-Pigeon was present in small numbers.

Superb Fruit-Dove

Singing Starling was ever present and probably the most numerous species in Honiara.

Singing Starling

After returning to Honiara from Rennell, we checked out the recently constructed Parangiju Mountain Lodge in the hills behind the city for an afternoon birding session. The cryptic Buff-headed Coucal was common along the road. Forest tracks behind the lodge yielded Solomons specialties including Chestnut-bellied Monarch and Steel-blue Flycatcher.

Chestnut-bellied Monarch

Steel-blue Flycatcher

The Guadalcanal endemic Black-headed Myzomela was not uncommon.

Black-headed Myzomela

A single North Melanesian Cuckoo-shrike, a scarce species seen earlier on Kolombangara, was an unexpected find. Long-tailed Myna was common.

North Melanesian Cuckoo-shrike

Long-tailed Myna

Other birds seen from lookouts around the lodge included the smart Yellow-bibbed Lory, Solomons Cicadabird and the sprightly Midget Flowerpecker.

Midget Flowerpecker

Yellow-bibbed Lory

In the distance was Honiara and across the water beyond, the neighbouring island of Malaita with its own suite of endemics.

View from Parangiju Lodge across Honiara to Malaita

For our three nights over eight days in Honaria, we were guests of Tourism Solomons at two delightful seaside hotels: the Coral Sea Resort and Heritage Park Hotel.

View from Coral Sea Resort, Honiara

Heritage Park Hotgel pre-dawn, Honiara

For our final morning in the Solomons we visited Mt Austen, another birding hotspot behind Honiara. In an isolated forest patch lurked the smart distinctive cinnamomea subspecies of Oriole Whistler - a bird that in time will likely be seven or eight species. Solomons Monarch, endemic to the central Solomons, put in a brief appearance.

.

Oriole Whistler

A pair of charismatic Ultramarine Kingfisher showed nicely on the forest edge. A loud whooshing sound signalled the presence of a magnificent male Blyth’s Hornbill in flight (first image).

Ultramarine Kingfisher

We had several glimpses of Guadalcanal Rail (regarded as a subspecies of Woodford’s Rail by some) which not so long ago was thought likely to be extinct. Surprisingly, we heard and/or saw it at three sites in a variety of habitat including garden patches, grassland and secondary forest. Buff-banded Rail was also present on the road. The Woodford's wouldn't oblige for a picture. More obliging were several Brown-winged Starlings, another Solomons specialty, and the more widespread Mackinlay's Cuckoo-Dove.

 

Mackinlay's Cuckoo-Dove

Brown-winged Starling

I noticed big changes since my last visit to Mt Austen in 1988. Extensive tracts of rainforest have been razed by Asian logging companies, which continue to wreak havoc on Rennell and many other islands including Kolombangara, although at least there the loggers have agreed to leave the upper slopes intact in return for harvesting the lowlands.

The best way to combat the loss of critical wildlife habitat to logging, mining and other development is to boost the tourism sector, providing much-needed revenue to the cash-strapped country. Apart from a feast of wonderful birds, that’s another good reason to go there.

Trip report here.

View from Mt Austen 

Solomon Islands 2024: Part 2 - Rennell Island

 

Bare-eyed White-eye

After visiting Kolombangara during our October trip to Solomon Islands (See this link) as a guest of Tourism Solomons, we flew from Honiara to Rennell, the country’s most easterly island and the world’s largest raised coral atoll, believed to have surfaced 2.5 million years ago at the end of the Pliocene. Much of the island is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. For its size it has an unusually high rate of avian endemism, with seven endemic and one near-endemic species, along with a host of distinctive subspecies awaiting taxonomic revision. An enthusastic throng of locals greeted our plane upon arrival.

Chief among the special endemic subspecies on Rennell is the pygmaeus race of Australian White Ibis with its small size, metallic red nape patch and short pink legs. The ibis is numerous around the main town of Tigoa. What is striking about Rennell is the harmony between birds and humans, unlike much of Melanesia and Polynesia, where hunting suppresses bird numbers.

Tigoa village

Endemic subs of Australia White Ibis

Within half an hour of checking into our modest homestay in Tigoa, we had chalked up four endemic species in secondary scrub on the town’s outskirts including the smart Rennell Shrikebill and Bare-eyed White-eye, an enigmatic bird of uncertain taxonomic provenance.

Rennell Shrikebill

Bare-eyed White-eye

Birding the trails nearby over a couple of days cleaned up all the island specialties including the newly split Vanikoro Island Thrush and the scarce Bronze Ground-Dove.

Bronze Ground-Dove

Vanikoro Island Thrush

Birding the Rennell Island trails

The drab Rennell Whistler is regarded as the trickiest endemic to find but we had multiple close encounters with this superb songster; mid-morning appears to be the best time to see them.

Rennell Whistler (above and below)

Birds were ever present. The near-endemic Silver-capped Fruit-Dove was abundant. 

Silver-capped Fruit-Dove

Flocks of Rennell Song Parrots and Rennell Starlings wheeled about and tiny Finsch’s Pygmy-Parrots were often found probing mossy tree trunks in the forest understorey.

Finsch's Pygmy-Parrot

Song Parrot

The endemic Rennell White-eye was as numerous as the Bare-eyed White-eye in primary and secondary forest. 

Rennell White-eye

The recently split Rennell Gerygone was ubiquitous and a frequent inhabitant of village gardens.

Rennell Gerygone

Rennell Fantail was less common and conspicuous, but easy enough to locate.

Rennell Fantail

Pacific Imperial-Pigeon, Melanesian Flycatcher and Cardinal Myzomela are widespread elsewhere in Melanesia and/or Polynesia but occur in the Solomons only on Rennell and nearby islands.

Cardinal Myzomela

Melanesian Flycatcher

Pacific Imperial-Pigeon

Moustached Treeswift is found throughout the region and plenty were flitting about on Rennell. The endemic subspecies of Barred Cuckoo-shrike and Pacific Kingfisher (scarce elsewhere in the Solomons) were common.

Moustached Treeswift

Rennell subsp of Barred Cuckoo-shrike
 

Pacific Kingfisher

I spoke to villagers about the birds. Elliot is an older gentleman who doesn’t know his age; he lives in a tiny wooden shack in the forest. “This is my home where my ancestors lived,” he says. “I want to protect these forests forever.” Is he ever lonely? “No, never. I have my garden and the trees around me. Look at them.” As he speaks, a nearby tree is alive with feeding Pacific Imperial-Pigeons. A short distance from Elliot’s shack is a beautiful, deep limestone cave full of crystal-clear water; a Great Long-fingered Bat hung from the cave ceiling.

Limestone cave

Elliot outside his forest home

Limited diesel fuel on the island for generators meant restricted power availability; ceiling fans were not always whirring during the heat of the day. Compensation came in the form of plentiful meals including freshly caught fish and coconut crab. 

Great cuisine - parrot fish (above); coconut crab (below)

 As is the case throughout the Solomons, local people are invariably friendly and helpful.

Trip report here.

Rennell Island coastline - view from the air