Anyone who doesn’t think the idea of using dogs to find Night Parrots is at least worth considering should check out Andrew Isles’ and Peter Menkhorst’s Short Communication in Emu 81(4). The note discusses Ewan Walton’s observations of Night Parrots during the 1950s near Ross’s Spring, south of Cowangie. (Interestingly, many of the early Victorian records of Night Parrot are centred around the Murrayville district; Ross’s Spring is not far to the south-east of here.) Isles and Menkhorst’s paper reads:
“In the summer of 1954, while Mr Walton was hunting near Ross’s Spring, his dog flushed several ‘strange parrots’ from beneath clumps of Triodia irritans. He took an interest in the birds and, during repeated visits to the area between 1954 and 1959, flushed the parrots on about twenty occasions. He saw the birds on most but not all visits. In November 1959 a-fierce bushfire swept through the area; since then, Mr Walton’s visits become less frequent and he did not see the parrots again.
“In his letter Mr Walton gives the following description of the birds: ‘slightly larger than a grass parrot (Psephotus haematonotus) but heavier at the top end . . . green with yellow markings not unlike a budgie, short legs and tail slightly on the long side. They lived in small holes under the spinifex (like tunnels or burrows). When you walked through the spinifex these birds would run out and scatter like quail. They showed a marked preference for running although they could fly quite well. When approached closely they would fly a short distance and land on the ground and run although I’ve seen them land in trees. I’ve never seen these birds about during daytime without having to walk through the spinifex and stir them out. If you walked up to them with a great deal of caution they were fairly quiet and often I got to within 30 or 40 feet [+lorn] from them’ … Approximately three weeks before the 1959 fire, five parrots were flushed by his dog and some then perched on th e lower branches (less than 1 m above ground) of a mallee tree. This is the largest group he recorded.”
The paper can be read in full (PDF) at http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/MU9810239.htm
Cheers
Andrew ===============================
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I had a couple of thoughts about this:
Peter Shute ===============================
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Paul. That’s all very well. But how are you going to train them? Sniffer dogs are trained with operant conditioning methods which involves them finding the scent and receiving reward. Even after they are trained they will not perform unless they are consistently having success and receiving rewards. Presumably, the dogs looking for Western Ground Parrot dogs have success in finding them and are receiving their rewards. I am not a dog expert, but I watch quarantine dogs at work every day and know that one of the biggest challenges for the handlers is keeping the dogs motivated. Cheers Steve Murray
I’m not so sure about that Steve, I believe the Western Ground Parrot Recovery Project uses trained sniffer dogs for surveys.
The difficulty with Night Parrots, I should imagine, is that they are not necessarily confined to a known locale like the Ground Parrots are. Presumably it may be possible to use a survey team with dogs in an area where Night Parrot has most recently been reported.
The question (raised by Jeff Davies), which I believe is perfectly valid, is whether the Night Parrots are truly nomadic. If they are not, and “generally” inhabit a particular area (or areas) then the use of dogs is quite possibly feasible.
Paul Dodd Docklands, Victoria
G’day again Steve,
I think at such an early stage just flushing the birds would surely be considered a successful first step wouldn’t it? While I am fully aware of the Big Desert experience a couple of issues to worry me about that report. Firstly Night Parrot could not be said to have a tail that was slightly on the long side when compared to a Grass Parrot and secondly there is another report in the literature of a Night Parrot being found by a dog in a clump but it didn’t flush until the owner got involved, I can’t remember the details of how he got the bird to fly out but it was typically reluctant to leave cover. If the Big Desert record was in fact of Night Parrot then it may have been a family group with fledglings I guess as an old report from WA is of a group of juveniles sheltering at a small cave entrance in Spinifex county, this observation was during day light obviously and the birds weren’t deep inside a Spinifex tussock. This observation described the juveniles as being browner than the adults and with yellow throats, the Diamantina specimen matches this well.
Cheers Jeff.
Andrew. Dion’s suggestion was to use dogs to track the Night Parrot, which I think is unfeasible. Using dogs to flush them out is a different matter entirely. My own dogs (when they were alive) were very good at flushing birds like quail and Buff-banded Rails. Using them to spring whatever they can find works very well. Steve Murray