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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Common Bronzewing |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Jerrard's nesting mound |
Before heading to
Boondooma, I called in on Eric Zillmann at his Bundaberg retirement
village. Eric is approaching his 102nd 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).
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| Roads have been named in honour of both Cyril Jerrard |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Paradise Parrot country - Queensland's South Burnett |
