‘Planet’s most elusive bird’ seen on trail camera at Australia reserve. See it
As night settled across the Australian outback, a rare bird emerged from its hiding place and moved across the ground. Unbeknownst to it, a nearby trail camera photographed its brief appearance.
The photos showed the “planet’s most elusive bird” — and excited conservationists.
Ecologists set up trail cameras at Pullen Pullen Special Wildlife Reserve several months ago as part of their ongoing monitoring efforts and started reviewing the footage in early September, Nick Leseberg, an ecologist with Bush Heritage Australia, told McClatchy News on Sept. 18.
Three photos stood out from the rest: The images, taken seconds apart on June 11, showed a small bird near the right edge of the frame.
Ecologists identified it as a night parrot, a species “described by the Smithsonian Institution as ‘the planet’s most elusive bird,’” Leseberg said via email.
“The Night Parrot is a critically endangered, nocturnal and mostly ground-dwelling bird, famous for avoiding detection,” Leseberg, a night parrot specialist, said. “They are bright green above, yellow on their belly, and across their entire body they have these incredible cryptic patterns of black and yellow speckles, dots and bars.”
Night parrots were considered “missing for more than a century before being rediscovered in 2013” in what is now Pullen Pullen Special Wildlife Reserve, Bush Heritage Australia said in a Sept. 17 Facebook post.
“Since the species was rediscovered about 12 years ago, this is only the third time we’ve managed to capture it on a camera trap,” Leseberg said.
Because night parrots are so rarely seen or photographed, ecologists study these birds by “listening for them and putting out sound recording devices,” Leseberg said. “You can’t watch Night Parrots like you can other diurnal (daytime) birds, (so) it’s these little snippets of data we have to interrogate to get information about their behaviour.”
Leseberg said he plans to analyze the audio from a microphone near the trail camera involved in the June sighting in hopes of learning more about the night parrot. Other monitoring efforts at the reserve are ongoing.
Pullen Pullen Special Wildlife Reserve, on Maiawali Country, Queensland, is in a remote part of central Australia and roughly 900 miles northwest from Sydney.
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 10:56 AM with the headline "‘Planet’s most elusive bird’ seen on trail camera at Australia reserve. See it."
