Back from the Dead

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Night Parrot was supposed to be extinct and became a legend among birdwatchers in Australia: a fat, dumpy, green parrot that lived in the desert and came out at night. The last bird seen alive was promptly shot dead in 1912. Over 90 years later, a decapitated Night Parrot was found beside a fence in outback Australia, and the hunt for a living bird was on. Ornithologists descended onto the arid plains of Australia’s vast arid interior, but it took another seven years for a single photograph of a live bird. Incredibly, a population of night parrots had survived. Their exact location is kept secret, and people are still looking for more – or more precisely, listening for more, using acoustic traps to identify calls. Dr Ann Jones from ABC Australia takes a huge microphone for a spin in the desert to join the hunt for the legendary Night Parrot. (Photo: Ullala Boss is a Birriliburu Indigenous Ranger, Elder and Traditional Owner and knows the dreaming stories of the Night Parrot. Credit: Dr Ann Jones)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.
0:04.7	Join me as I serve up personal conversations
0:07.1	with my sensational guests.
0:08.9	Do a leap, interviews, Tim Cook.
0:11.2	Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.
0:15.0	It's in the hands of the Creator.
0:16.7	It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.
0:20.6	If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong thing.
0:26.0	Julie, at your service.
0:28.0	Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales.
0:32.0	I'm looking for the night parrot. It's just after dusk and I'm standing in the
0:39.4	Burrilli Burrill indigenous protected area right in the middle of Western Australia.
0:45.0	I've been here about a week and I've heard one plane go past.
0:50.0	This is as isolated as you could possibly get on mainland Australia.
0:56.0	I'm here to search for a tiny nocturnal bird.
1:00.0	It's the night parrot, a little robust log of a parrot about the size of a toddler's sock,
1:07.0	green and yellow with black speckles, and its home is on the ground in the spin effects. That is an incredibly spiky desert plant. Just ask my legs.
1:20.0	That's a Buebook. It's a type of owl, not a night parrot.
1:27.0	That's a really wagtail, not a night parrot. They're not a nocturnal bird, but sometimes they just seem to sing to the moon, which is pretty cool. I'm in my death and I can hear Mardu snoring and it's windy and I think I can hear Dinkos.
2:17.1	No night parrot tonight. This is the chase for Discovery on the BBC. I'm Anne Jones from the ABC in Australia and I'm taking part in a chase that has gone on over millennia. We're searching for a bird that's so rare it might just be a
2:26.3	ghost. It's the night parrot. Throughout the history of the search, especially in
2:32.2	the last 200 years, the Knight Parrot has attracted controversy and characters.
	...

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