Call for action to save the swift parrot

By Shepparton News

Jun 2, 2025

The swift parrot. Photo by Chris Tzaros. Photo by Contributed

The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority is highlighting the importance of tree hollows for wildlife in its 2025 Year of the Tree Hollow community awareness campaign.

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This month, one of the Goulburn Broken catchment’s critically endangered species, the migratory swift parrot (Lathamus discolor), is featured.

Goulburn Broken CMA project officer Janice Mentiplay-Smith said the swift parrot was one of Australia’s most beautiful parrots, but was on a trajectory to extinction if not enough was done to save it.

“With just several hundred of these beautiful birds remaining in the wild, the ‘Swiftie’ is listed as critically endangered under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999,” she said.

These parrots nest and raise their chicks in tree hollows in southern Tasmania during the summer.

They require deep nesting hollows in large old trees, either in the trunk or in the end of a branch, and which can take up to 150 years to develop.

Local birding group Murray Goulburn BirdLife meets monthly to conduct bird surveys and to enjoy the local environment.

Its next outing is on Saturday, June 21, at the southern car park of Kinnairds Wetland in Numurkah at 10am.

To attend the next outing, contact robertsdon680@gmail.com

For more information on the swift parrot, visit birdlife.org.au/events/swift-parrot-search/