Princess Parrot Quest in the Gibson desert

[Polytelismedia]

When I went to Aus in 2008 my top 3 species I soooo badly wanted to see were
(in this order)
1. Princess Parrot (I was told it was next to impossible to see them)
2. Budgie
3. Major Mitchell's Cockatoo

Here are a couple of photos of Princess in the wild 800 KM west of Alice Springs in the remote desert. It was the hi-light of my whole trip seeing them!



Sorry if I am too overly excited about this but this still image from my footage represents (at the time) perhaps the only moving footage of this species ever taken of wild Princess. You wouldnt believe how excited I was! Arent they beautiful!?

 

[Anne & Gang]

they are SPECTACULAR

 

[Polytelismedia]

Seeing a princess parrot in the wild is a special experience. I would love to hear from others who have seen them in the wild and perhaps filmed them. At one point I was told by experts that I had the only moving footage of wild princess on the planet either historically or currently! One major thrill for sure. However I know that because of crazy rainey periods and an increase in food and watering areas in Australia that princess were found breeding real close to Alice Springs as recent as last year. I am thinking that someone by now has some fantastic footage of this gorgeous Polytelis parrot. Anyone have any thoughts on this one? Thanks!

 

[Renae]

Lovely! A friend of mine has a breeding pair of Princess Parrots and I love seeing them each time I go there.

 

[Stevo]

I have no footage, but have been fortunate enough to see both the Princess and Major Mitchells in the wild With all the flooding in the past couple of years we can expect numbers of most species to bloom thanks to the wealth of feed which encourages breeding and enable sucessful rearing of hatched bubs. It should bode well for the next couple of years

 

[Polytelismedia]

I have no footage, but have been fortunate enough to see both the Princess and Major Mitchells in the wild :

Whoah Steveo! There are many top birders in Aus who have seen all but 4 or 5 of the entire lot of birds in Aus and they still need to see princess. Where have you seen them? I know people who have paid over 3000.00 Aus for a 2-week tour in the outback and have come up empty-handed. Love to know about your Princess adventure!
Don

 

[Stevo]

I find myself a bit blase about our birds... lol. Most of the time the sitings are incidental to what i'm out doing and I dont think much of it! I cannot recall the exact location, but it would have been on my 6 week work round trip flying Kiowas (Helicopter) around the NT and WA. Our route took in most of the WA coast as well as the interior: Darwin-Katherine-Timber Creek-Kunanurra-Halls Creek-Fitzroy Crossing-Curtain(Derby)-Broome-Port Headland-Newman-Meekatharra-Mt Magnet-Jurien Bay-Perth-Bunbury-Albany-Esperence-Kalgoorlie-Laverton-Lake Wells-Warburton-Yulara-Alice Springs-Tennant Creek-Daly Waters-Katherine-Darwin......

A lot of the other Australian Parrots that I've seen have been when on long drives around the country, where I've either seen them when I've stopped for a break or have seen them flying along/across the road I've covered a lot of countryside!!

 

[Polytelismedia]

Wow thats awesome Steve-O. Okay I can now hardly wait to come back to Aus and have you fly me into Princess territory for even better footage.. Just kidding mate I suspect you have lots of restrictions on that one!
Sure wish I knew where you had seen them. Its hard for me to be blase about Aussie parrots even now and having spent months filming them. For someone from north america its hard for us to wrap our head around living in a place where parrots fly free everywhere! Am I correct people? Others can chime in if they agree!

 

[Twitter09]

My only real wild parrot experience so far has been seeing mainly Monk Parakeets, flying freely in Florida and Delaware (obviously released x-pets originally). We had what seemed like a thriving colony here in Delaware for several years in the 1990s. They have since disappeared. I don't know if they were deliberately removed by the State of Delaware, the city they lived in, the property owners, the power company, or if they just petered out on their own. They were living in the resort town of Rehoboth Beach. They had contructed several huge nests (they are one of the very few parrots which build nests rather than use nest holes). There were clearly several dozen birds (50+ ?) and I am pretty sure they were breeding. A friend of mine took a bunch of photos for me. I will try to locate and scan them so I can post them.

I know one huge nest was in a pine tree on someone's properly, who might not have appreciated all the people stopping by. There was one or two other nests, next to transformers on telephone poles. So I guess if these nests were removed or even destroyed from the weather in winter, it could have wiped out the colony. But Monk Parakeets are unusually hardy parrots and colonies have persisted in colder places than Delaware (NYC, Connecticut, Illinois). However, maybe to survive the winter up north, they might need a warm nest to retreat to? Like I said, if these got destroyed in the middle of winter, maybe that finished them.