SPECIES: Neophema chrysostoma — Blue-winged Parrot
CLASSIFICATION: Vulnerable
Small, swift, and strikingly beautiful, the Blue-winged Parrot is a grassland specialist with shimmering green plumage and flashes of brilliant blue on its wings. Once common across southeastern Australia, this migratory species is now listed as vulnerable under the EPBC Act. Each year, Blue-winged Parrots make an extraordinary journey across Bass Strait, migrating between Tasmania and mainland Australia. Along the way, they rely on native grasslands, saltmarshes, and coastal shrublands - habitats that are rapidly disappearing.
Widespread land clearing, grazing pressure, and development have drastically reduced the availability of food and shelter. Conservation concern is also heightened due to its overlap with the critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrot, with which it shares key wintering sites.