Fig Parrot Chicks

Of highest priority to saving the endangered southern race of fig parrot is finding a next with chicks so that a captive breeding program can be established.  If you live south of Rockhampton and you see parrots like the ones in this post, take photos if you can and contact the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (email address is in recovery plan). Look for cheerful little faces looking at you from the trees.

My favourite fig parrot - this little chick watches what I get up to (1/11/2014)

I stand about 5 m away and take photos with a superzoom camera.

According the species recovery plan published in 2005, “Coxen's fig-parrot [the endangered subspecies] is thought to nest in the same manner as the red-browed fig-parrot [the subspecies shown in this post]. Training in north Queensland will be undertaken to hone the skills necessary for locating the nest holes of Coxen’s fig-parrot. This exercise will enhance observers’ abilities in nest recognition, particularly with respect to the height, aspect, positioning and appearance of nest holes, the tree species favoured for nesting and the preferred breeding habitats. In addition, familiarity will be increased with the appearance, flight style, behaviour and calls of the similar red-browed fig-parrot. The training exercise in north Queensland should be conducted by members of the recovery team in October or November so that the experience gained can be passed on to others and applied”.  Most of that information can be found in this post and previous posts on this subject.

A chick in a large dead paperbark in the mangroves about 15 m above the ground (5/11/2014)

When I first saw the hole in September, a parrot was in it but taking photos with a smart phone through binoculars was not successful. When I went to take a photo a few days later, green ants were trying to claim the hole.  However the chick above survived the green ants  

In late September, I started to hear the noise of chicks begging for food.  Sometimes, I would even glimpse a bit of baldy head but the parent would enter the nesting hole and push the chick back if I observed too closely.  Now the chick or chicks are older, they are getting interested in the outside world and spend a lot of time with their heads out of the burrow looking around.  This may be the best time to look for active nests as you can make some funny sounds and the chicks come up for a look.  They are much less timid than the adults.  Fig parrots never become tame and do not make good pets.  With their really small tails they do not make good aviary birds as they can’t turn quickly and tend hit the end of the aviary as full speed, hurting themselves.  I would be careful about handling a bird that is not tame and that can chew through wood, not to mention that handling an endangered species would get you in serious trouble.

Dad to my favourite fig parrot chick

Most of the time, the fig parrots that visit my yard target green figs.  They eat some figs including Ficus racemosa and ignore other figs such as Ficus superba.  Ficus variegata is also a favourite.  They eat the seeds of the fruit and spit out the flesh and normally feed on green fruit, which would are dreadful tucker from a human perspective as they are full of sap-flavoured, glue-like resin.  Ficus racemosa fruit are very good to eat when fully ripe and have a flavour like strawberries.  I a pretty sure that Ficus variegata never really ripens and is never good to eat.  When the figs are the best for me, the fig parrots have long lost interest and think the idea that they normally feed on ripe fruit needs to be discarded.  Fig parrots tend to pick a cluster of figs and quietly chew for hours.  Cluster figs may be far more important that species of fig which have fruit dispersed through the canopy.  Normally, I detect the parrots by hearing the plugs of fruit the spit out landing on the leaf litter beneath the tree. When a few birds are present, the tree literally drips bits of fig.  The birds also make small squeaks as contact calls and the parent generally calls to be chick before approaching the nest hole.

Green Ficus racemosa is the best.  There are two birds in the photo.

This is the first and only time I have seen a fig parrot on ripe figs.

Previous posts:

• Saving the fig parrot; and
• Where fig parrots nest.

Where the Fig Parrots Nest

Having found some possible nesting holes of the endangered southern Queensland race of fig parrots in the mangroves, I thought that I would look around the mangroves near Cairns for fig parrot nests.  In one afternoon, I found about twenty nests so it seems that the urban-mangrove fringe is a major nesting habitat.

My favourite fig parrot has now been committed to her nesting hole for more that three months.  As she is in a very busy area, she is fairly tolerant to people and even tall vehicles brushing the foliage of the tree she lives in.  Unfortunately, she suddenly realised that I was intently watching the nest.  Being in an urban area, I am restricted as to where I can place the camera and had to go within about 4 m of the nest.  This was too much for the little bird, which jumped out of the hole and flew away.  Fortunately she later returned to the nest but after the fright, she became very cryptic and was hard to observe.  She has relaxed a bit since but I need to stay at least 6 m away.  Fig parrots living in the woods are not used to people and is better to give them at least 20 m of clearance.  If you have a flip out screen on you superzoom camera, you might use that to watch the birds to avoid the need to stare directly at the birds.

Don't trust the humans

It seems that my favourite fig parrot is not the only urban fig parrot.  There is a giant fig tree at Barlow Park in the centre of Cairns which has fig parrots in a trimmed up tree branch, a perfect demonstration that trimming trees in a certain way can create habitat for these little fellows.  The British use a technique call fracture pruning to leave some dead wood in tree crowns for their wildlife.  We could do something similar here, however fracturing the end of a dead branch would allow the centre to rot out quickly and fig parrots reject trees with hollow centres as far as I can tell.  Years ago, I strapped a heap of reject didgeridoos to the trees in my yard but nothing wanted to live in those.  Falling didgeridoos are dangerous so I connected them to the tree with fencing wire. A strand of wire would run along the top of the didgeridoo with some loops of wire wrapped around the instrument.   The other end of the wire was threaded through some poly hose and secured around a solid live branch.  This way, the didgerdoo could not become deadly.  A few super duper cable ties and some UV stable rope might also be a quick way of ensuring that dead wood can't fall until it has crumbled.

Fig parrot nest hollows in a pruned branch
- this tree was on the mangrove edge before the park was filled.

Close-up of the holes, not all holes become nests
- perhaps the wood needs to be not to hard and not too soft

My first mangrove edge fig parrot hollow was spotted on my drive to town.  It was in a dead pillar of a tree that is right beside the road verge.  In a short period of time, I found a few dozen fig parrot holes in tall stag trees.  The favourite trees are dead northern paperbark, Melaleuca leucadendra, which found at the very  edge of mangrove swamps.  In fact, they are so close to the mangroves that the small about of climate change induced sea level rise has killed many of them.  When you live on the high tide line, 3 mm per year of sea level rise over thirty years is a big deal.   I can remember all of these trees being within a strip of saltwater couch beside the mangroves.  Now the trees are in the mangroves and the wide grassy strip is gone as the mangroves have squeezed it out.  The dead melaleucas are very tall, almost 30 m tall and stand clear of the surrounding mangroves and beach vegetation so provide an exposed clear trunk.  Melaleuca wood is also much softer and less durable than eucalypt or acacia timber and I have found no nests in the later species.

Paperbarks that were born in grassland will die in the mangroves thanks to sea level rise

The massive branches of dead giants are perfect for fig parrots

There is one other factor that warrants a mention.  I have been trying to set a camera trap to catch a striped possum.  I suspect striped possums eat fig baby fig parrots if they can catch them.  Where there is striped possum sign, there are few fig parrots nests.  I suspect that fig parrots are doing best in places where pussy cats keep the striped possums out.  Fig parrot central is a peninsular like patch of habitat that juts into a Cairns suburb.  There is a strip of bush with tall paperbarks at the edges that is separated from the houses by a thin band of mangroves.  Most of the nest trees are within 50 m cat infested suburban land.  Conversely, I also occassionally find parrot nests that appear to have been enlarged which suggests that stripped possums may be using parrot nests for dens.  More research is needed.  Southern Queensland has a huge population of possums and perhaps some dead trees should be fitted with possum guards to give their endangered fig parrots a chance.

Many of the branches eventually snap at or near fig parrot nesting holes

Saving the Fig Parrot

Brisbane has some beautiful coastal wetlands.  In large cities like Brisbane, the coastal wetlands are usually the last native ecosystems present that would be similar to how they were when the early settlers arrived.  The bush and rainforest have been transformed by weeds and have become an alien vegetation that is dominated by a handful of adaptable and aggressive species such as noisy minors that exclude other birds and animals.  Brisbane was a biodiversity hot spot but much has been lost.  Mangroves forests and salt pans which were once the poorest habitats for fauna have now become one of the richest as they are relatively immune to degradation.  Mangroves and the small islands of terrestrial forest they contain may even be the last habitat of some species.

Perhaps the rarest and most endangered bird in South East Queensland is Coxen’s Fig Parrot (Cyclopsitta diophthalma coxeni).  There are an estimated 100 individuals left but no one really knows as they are a cryptic species.  The small green parrots feed quietly on native rainforest figs and being the size and shape of fig leaves, they are very hard to see so targeted searches for this species usually fail to find any.  To save the species, the QLD and NSW State Governments want to start a captive breeding program, but nobody can find an occupied nest.  Stock for breeding programs is normally taken from wild nests.  I suppose that this would make my discovery of some possible old nesting hollows in a mangrove tree a significant find.

Possible old fig parrot nest holes in a mangrove beside the board walk at Nudgee Beach

A lizard in a stag beetle hole in the same tree.  The stag beetles may make pilot holes for the parrots.

Fig parrots make their own hollows.  Over about a month, they chew their way into a rotting branch.  Some hollows are about 60 cm deep which I discovered by finding fallen nest branches which split open when they landed.  If you find a fallen nest or any nest, be sure to report it to the national parks service.

Fig parrot in Cairns starting to tunnel - 17 July 2014.

Stopping for a look around.

30 August, been sleeping in the hole for while now, but when there is a noise, the parrot comes to the entrance for a look (flash photo taken just after dark).

Female fig parrot begging for food from its mate.

Male fig parrot about to feed the female.

There is a species recovery plan for this species but it does not appear to address the nesting requirements for this species.  My knowledge of the subject comes from observing another subspecies of fig parrot, the red browed fig parrot (Cyclopsitta diophthalma macleayana) which is still common in Far North Queensland.  Fig parrots need rotting branches between 10 and 25 cm in diameter where the sapwood softens without the branch falling.   Live timber is too hard and in many cases would have unpleasant sap.  In nesting branches, often the sapwood rots away completely and the dead branch becomes an empty tube of bark when the parrot scrapes out the contents.  The favoured species are fig trees (F. drupacea) but I have seen nests in beach almonds (Terminalia arenicola).  I even have a nest near my house in a rainforest tree with one of the hardest scientific name I know of (Blepharocareya involucrigera).  Many of the nesting trees are in parks.  Twenty years ago, I would only see fig parrots flying in small groups high in the sky.  In only a few years, the fig parrots have moved into town.  I suspect many/most urban nests are lost to tree loppers who are called in to remove sick trees and dead branches.   If we can find places where trees can be allowed to old and decrepit, then every park fig in Brisbane City could one day be visited by this species.  Figs branches tend to rot until they become as light as foam before falling and if dead branches of suitable diameter were cut off a bit more than half a metre from living timber, the safety hazard from falling branches would be very small.  In fact many of the local nests around Cairns are in the stubs of branches that were trimmed by the city council.   Any branch with a gnawed hole or a gnawed test pit should be off-limits to tree trimmers.  The birds tend to chew out test pits until they find timber that just right.

Although I did find nest hollows in the mangroves, I do not believe that in general mangroves are suitable habitat.  Mangroves have high populations of rats which predate crabs and which would prey on parrot chicks as well.

Red browed fig parrot feeding on Ficus racemosa on an isolated tree on a sand ridge in the mangroves.

I suspect that another serious oversight of the recovery plan is that it does not address the food supply of the fig parrots.  Fig parrots eat green figs and not ripe figs. The northern fig parrots feed very heavily on Ficus racemosa and to a lesser extent on F. drupacea, both of which are native to Brisbane but which are rarely planted.  These figs are deciduous and drop very heavy crops of fruit a number of times a year so are not ideal park trees.   Planting these species around the margins of parks, particularly on the edges of the mangroves creeks and other places where people don’t typically venture might be a way of boosting food resources.  Fig parrots are highly mobile and isolated trees make up most of their food supply.  Another undocumented food is Melaleuca viridiflora flower buds.

Fig parrots feed for days to weeks on a single tree until fruiting stops and they return as soon as fruiting begins again, so isolated urban trees are likely to be extremely important to this species.  The species recovery plans should include the establishment a network of isolated trees which can fee the birds year round.  All the photos above were planted trees.  I planted them.

The 1.5 km long km board walk at Nudgee Beach is just across from Brisbane Airport - something to do before you catch a plane. 

Further Reading:
Coxens fig parrot Species Recovery Plan