What鈥檚 chubby, green and flits around remote areas of Australia at night?
It鈥檚 not an extraterrestrial and it鈥檚 not a cane toad. Ornithologists
from the Australian Museum in Sydney hope the unidentified flying object
is the country鈥檚 rarest bird, the night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis).
Some authorities believe the bird is extinct. But in 1990 a squashed night parrot
was found on a roadside in southwest Queensland.
Over recent months, truck drivers and pig shooters in northern Australia have
reported seeing plump, green birds sitting by the side of the road at night.
Drovers have described 鈥済reen quail鈥� running in front of cattle. Now the museum
and the National Threatened Species Network in Alice Springs have joined forces
to collate and analyse the unexplained sightings. If a pattern emerges, the clues
mightlead to a night parrot. Posters, telling how to identify the bird, will
will be distributed throughout Queensland, the Northern Territory and South
Australia. The posters will also tell night travellers who to contact
if they make a sighting.