Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!andrewt
From: andrewt@cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Night Parrot
Message-ID: <1482@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>
Date: 14 Nov 90 01:09:48 GMT
References: <1990Nov7.162529.15156@zoo.toronto.edu> <9034@cognos.UUCP>
Sender: news@cluster.cs.su.oz.au
Reply-To: andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 37

In article <9034@cognos.UUCP> stewartw@cognos.UUCP (Stewart Winter) writes:
>    I heard about it on "As It Happens."  Not necessarily the best
> source of info about birds, but ...  They referred to it there
> as the 'big foot' of parrots.  Lots of sightings, but none really
> confirmed.  There was a large cash prize available for a verifiable
> sighting which had been unclaimed in over 30 years.

No it isn't a good source of information. Unlike Bigfoot there were 12 museum
specimens. There haven't been many sighting in recent years probably less than
20. The only large cash prize I know about had been available for only 6 months! 
Hopefully the Night Parrot will join some other birds that were almost
complete mysteries 10 years ago but we now know something about, such
as the "Plumed Frogmouth" (southern sunspecies of the Marbled Frogmouth)
and the Red Goshawk.

There are still a some mysteries left. The Paradise Parrot hasn't been
seen since 1928. Its probably extinct but there are still rumours!

More famous is the Thylacine (also called the Tasmanian Tiger, a Marsupial wolf
equivalent). The last accepted records are in the 1930s and its probably
extinct. But there are still numerous reported sighting, some apparently quite
reliable, but no solid evidence. Even stranger some of the reported sightings
come from the mainland. It was thought to become extinct on the mainland 2000+
years ago because of the Dingo's arrival.

We should be due for a new (not split) Australian bird species soon too.
There seems to have have been one every ten years since WWII. The best story
is probably that of the Grey Grasswren. In 1942 Norm Favaloro was travelling 
through the Bulloo Overflow a remote area of central Australia. An unusual bird
flew across the road in front of his vehicle. He didn't have time to stop
and because of the war couldn't return. 25 years later in 1967, he returned to
the same spot and discovered the Grey Grasswren.

I think there is likely to another species of Grasswren still to be discovered
will a tiny range in some very remote area.

Andrew