From: Darren Callesen Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 1:34 AM To: ELIZABETH SHAW Subject: Re: Fw: [Birding-Aus] Information for inclusion in Night Parrot flyer
Hi Chris, I’m Elizabeth Shaw’s partner.
I have seen Night Parrots, but in the early 1980’s.
It was North-East of Alice Springs, I’ll gladly give you more accurate details in a private email as I don’t wish to start a rush, and destroy what little habitat they have left. I’m pretty confidant I could locate them after major rainfall in the same area.
Now I was not a birder then, and was not aware of what we were looking at, we called them King Budgies for want of a better name.
I saw the illustration in BirdLife and exclaimed to Elizabeth I’ve seen a pile of those in my time, yeah-yeah was the reply.
But it wasn’t too long before she realized I had described a lot of their known behavior without having read the article.
Now it does not surprise me at all that grader drivers are seeing them, so definitely follow them up, they may provide some valuable leads, as you say they have nothing to gain in bragging rights!
From the behavior I have observed though (I was lucky enough to have several breading pairs visit my lodgings in search of water) they definitely don’t like deep water, they wouldn’t go near the pond or the birdbath until nearly empty, (I never ever saw them near dams or turkey nests or open top tanks or troughs), and they really preferred shallow puddles when they were around.
Hope this helps, hence why they might be easier to find after rain, however if you find a likely location maybe putting down some water in a shallow puddle might just lure them out!
I have to go through some old video footage I have and (don’t hold your breath) I may have some fleeting glimpses of some among flocks of Budgies, we always saw them around Budgie breeding season and that was about it, very elusive otherwise!
Hope this helps, they do exist, or did in the 80’s, happy birding, Happy Snappin’ Darren J Callesen
PS. We may just be going near the location in a few months, I hope to get one on camera, I’m a pro photographer, so the hunt will be on for sure. We’ll let you know closer to the date so you can join us if you’d like.
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 12:28 AM, ELIZABETH SHAW
