Guest essays

My wife Belinda and I first visited Cape York in 1983. On our way to Iron Range, we looked for Golden-shouldered Parrots but drew a blank. Thirty years later we did a similar trip with Bill and Wendy Cooper with excellent results. The Coopers are close friends with the Shephards of Artemis Station and that was our first port of call. It was a wonderful few days and we saw Golden-shoulders in a variety of places on the property.

Our final morning was particularly memorable. Bill and Wendy moved on to Lakefield National Park, but we decided to slow down and have one last look. There were a few Golden-shoulders near the main Artemis road leaving the homestead so we parked the car, hopped over the fence, and started to watch the parrots. The more we looked the more we saw. Ahead of us were a largish group, probably a dozen or more, feeding on the ground. Many were juveniles and it is relatively easy to identify the sexes. The young juvenile plumaged males are already distinguishable from the female by brighter blue cheeks.

We then heard Budgerigars behind us, an uncommon bird on Cape York, and there were a small number in a tree with two adult male Golden-shoulders. Not long after a small party of the magnificent northern race of the Pale-headed Rosella came in. These are a stunning bird, formerly known as the Blue-cheeked Rosella, with their combination of extensive blue underparts and yellow crown. Then more Golden shoulders put in an appearance along with a small group of Crimson-winged Parrots; and finally a forging party of excitable Grey-crowned Babblers.

This experience gave me the idea of getting of a commission from Bill Cooper – not a portrait of Golden shoulders but a habitat painting. Bill started life as a landscape artist and this grounding helped him become one of the greatest wildlife artists of all time. So now Belinda and I have a large oil painting of Golden shoulders living in their open grassland and woodland habitat with the termite mounds they nest in.

It is dreadful to think that in a few short years after our 2013 visit parrot numbers have declined to not much more than the birds we saw on that morning. But there is hope thanks the to the work being done by the Shephards and Artemis Nature Fund. Please consider making a donation to the fund to become a Friends of Artemis.

Professional wildlife photographer Martin Willis reflects on his long connection with, and concern for Golden-shouldered Parrots on Artemis. Martin has travelled the world for his stunning images, five of which have been finalists in the BBC International Wildlife Photography Competition.

Eventually, however, my geographic situation changed and I was in a position to pursue one of my dreams.

Sue and Tom Shepherd, the owners of Artemis Station and voluntary custodians of the parrot, were extremely accommodating and set myself and fellow photographer, the late Ian Boyd, up with a campsite in the bush just a few hundred metres from where the birds were breeding.  “I don’t mind photographers working near the nest when the young are about to leave.”  Sue explained.   “It helps prevent predation of the fledglings by butcherbirds”.   Apparently, the butcherbirds perch in a broad-leaf melaleuca or other such shrub and wait for the young to emerge from their ant-bed nest.  Easy dinner.  Continued encroachment of woodland into the parrot’s open habitat is thought to be a major contributor to the dramatic decline in numbers of the GSP.

Well, we were very happy to oblige Sue and proceeded to set up our hide a good distance from the nest in preparation for a long awaited photo session.

Early the next morning we settled ourselves into our camo hide and waited for the action.  Before long a gold and turquoise flash signalled the arrival of a magnificent male.  He alighted obligingly atop the pinnacle of the mound and my photographic love affair with the Golden-shouldered Parrot began.

My first experience with the Golden-shouldered Parrot on Artemis was in 2007 and at this time it was common to see flocks of 20 or more birds across the property. However, what has really alarmed me of late is how few of these iconic little birds are left and how quickly they are disappearing.  It would be a sad fate and an indictment on all Australians if we were to see the Golden-shouldered Parrot follow the same path to extinction as its brightly coloured cousin, the Paradise Parrot.

Fortunately, Sue and the rest of the people involved with the Artemis Nature Fund are rigorously pursuing a solution to this rapid decline.  Drastic situations demand drastic measures and so I find myself extremely supportive of the most recent push to turn things around for GSPs on Artemis. Even as a passionate bird photographer, who hates to see banded birds in the wild, I am even more passionate about the survival of the species, so I understand the absolute necessity for colour-banding and the other research techniques being used.  With concerted help from the public, I have every confidence that Sue and the team have all the necessary skills and passion to solve the problems and reverse the decline, and will do so in the most careful and diligent manner. Consequently, I have no hesitation in commending their work and encouraging other people to step up a support this most important cause.

All images in this post are copyright Martin Willis. To see more of Martin’s photos, visit: https://www.martinwillisphotographs.com.au/

Veteran parrot researcher and leading conservation scientist Professor Stephen Garnett shares his long history with Golden-shouldered Parrots on Artemis, which started in the early 1990s.

The first theory was that breeding fails too often. Our main worry was loss of adults. The numbers of eggs and young taken by goannas, butcherbirds and cats at the nest seemed too small to cause a population decline but adult losses were much more worrying. While it was something we never witnessed, little piles of adult feathers at abandoned nests told the story. Females seemed most vulnerable. They do most digging and all the incubating so have to go in and out of the nest more often. If a predator attacks when the parrot’s head is in the nest hole, or when the parrot emerges from the nesting chamber, they can be ambushed. Such ambushes are launched from perches in nearby trees. However, over the years, tree density has increased because fires hot enough to keep the vegetation open are now less frequent. This makes it more likely that predators will be successful than in the past. Our first theory was therefore that the population has gradually declined because losses of adults at the nest have increased.

The second theory was that too few birds were surviving the tough time all seed-eating birds face at the end of the dry season and early wet season. Every year annual grasses produce millions of seeds and these provide plenty of food for seed-eaters in the dry season. For the parrots we watched, the fire grass seeds they preferred were so dense that the parrots only needed an hour for feeding each morning and afternoon, spending the rest of their day asleep in dense shade. But at the end of a long dry season, such seed became scarce. Then the rain came and remaining seed germinated. The change was almost instantaneous. From one day to the next the parrots we were watching doubled their feeding time. They hunted for different sorts of seed that had not been buried. They scraped seeds off rocks. We even saw them hauling germinating seed out of the ground.

The behaviour of butcherbirds changed just as suddenly. We had seen butcherbirds at parrot nests and suspected they were important nest predators but, during the dry season, they largely ignored the flocks of young parrots. But, when the rains came, we started to see butcherbirds attacking feeding parrots which now spent more time on the ground and afford less time to be alert. Fortunately the parrots had friends – nesting Black-faced Woodswallows. Woodswallows chase butcherbirds that come too close, their loud alarm calls alerting the busily feeding parrots. As part of our research we had colour banded many young parrots. The only ones we saw a year after banding were those we had also seen with woodswallow flocks in the early wet season – we suspected the others had been killed. However, woodswallows are also open country birds – they are common in inland Australia, and they too seemed to be less common in places where the woody growth had led to a thickening of the vegetation. The second theory was that the parrots are declining because too few survive the wet season.

But that was where we had to leave our research. Was it losses at the nest or losses in the early wet season that were driving population declines, or a combination of the two? Which sort of habitat should be managed? How should it be done? Were the butcherbirds really responsible? For years we suggested these questions should be answered by further research but never raised the money to do so. For years parrot numbers have continued to decline. I am delighted now to see the renewed interest in these lovely birds, and the way that land management and research are being integrated to address the questions we left unanswered a quarter of a century ago.

By Kate and Derick Wakefield

We are third generation Shephards. Here are a few pages from a school project we did on Antbed (Golden-shoulder) Parrots earlier this year.