For 100 years, the evening parrot was the undisputed thriller hen of Australian ornithology. Till the invention and subsequent research of a tiny inhabitants in Queensland’s far west in 2013, two specimens discovered by the aspect of distant outback roads in 1990 and 2006, additionally in Queensland, had been the one onerous proof of its continued existence.

With the parrot now current and accounted for, there stays one Australian hen that has by no means been photographed: the buff-breasted buttonquail.

Just like the evening parrot, it has gone a full century undetected. The final undisputed report was a specimen shot by the legendary naturalist William McLennan close to Coen in far north Queensland, in February 1922.

It could even be the primary Australian hen condemned to extinction because the paradise parrot – yet one more Queensland species, which was final seen alive within the Nineteen Twenties.

Buttonquail are a small household of ground-dwelling, polyandrous species that resemble however should not intently associated to “true” quail (a part of a a lot bigger group that additionally consists of pheasants and chickens). Distributed from sub-Saharan Africa throughout Asia and Australia, buttonquail largely dwell in grasslands, fly solely when disturbed and should not usually seen.

Regardless of its enigmatic standing, the buff-breasted buttonquail (Turnix olivii) just isn’t an attractive species. It didn’t make the longlist for Guardian Australia’s 2023 hen of the yr ballot. It’s a cryptic, dumpy, dowdy hen that, within the exceedingly unlikely occasion you had been ever to see one, would seem as a whirr of wings exploding out of your toes and disappearing helter-skelter into the scrub.

That’s if ever you are feeling like trudging by means of the baking scorching savannah of Cape York Peninsula.

“The issue with buff-breasted buttonquail is you’ve bought to be mad to check them, and also you’ve bought to actually love your buttonquails,” the group chief of the analysis and restoration of endangered species (Rares) group on the College of Queensland, James Watson, says.

Enter graduate scholar Patrick Webster. In April 2018, Webster was aiding with evening parrot surveys at Pullen Pullen reserve in far west Queensland – any birdwatcher’s dream.

“I used to be with him when he noticed his first evening parrot after which a few hours of later he noticed his first little buttonquail. He was much more excited in regards to the buttonquail,” Watson says.

Webster admits he had bother discovering a supervisor who would tackle his proposal to check the buff-breasted buttonquail for his doctorate till Watson put his hand up.

“I used to be beginning to change into fairly enthusiastic about this group of birds and right here was one which was just about unknown to science,” Webster says. “I noticed that as a spot in our understanding, a spot that I may fill and that was the attract.”

Unreliable memoirs

And so for 4 years – largely in the course of the near-unbearable humidity of the early moist season – Webster and Watson slogged by means of the dry woodlands of Cape York. They concentrated their early efforts between Mareeba and Mount Molloy, the place for many years hardcore birders had claimed to have encountered the species, with out conclusive proof.

Full disclaimer: I used to be certainly one of them. In late January 2007 I walked the hills south of Mount Molloy for 3 days, and on three events flushed what I regarded as buff-breasted buttonquail. However with out a {photograph}, my fading reminiscences are an unreliable witness to observations lasting no various seconds.

Many instances early of their fieldwork, Webster and Watson thought they’d discovered the species. Massive buttonquail becoming accepted subject descriptions of the buff-breasted could be startled from below their toes. However at any time when they had been in a position to relocate the birds, hiding or scuttling by means of the grass, they’d be disenchanted.

Invariably, the birds turned out to be the intently associated painted buttonquail (Turnix varius), a way more frequent and extensively distributed species.

“A sequence of crimson flags began to emerge,” Webster says. “It took 12 to 18 months to grasp what was occurring.”

They modified course. Webster was briefly despatched to check a 3rd species, chestnut-backed buttonquail, which replaces the buff-breasted buttonquail within the Prime Finish and Kimberley. It too is little-known, however Webster had no bother monitoring it down, even discovering the species in Queensland for the primary time.

Webster’s capacity to search out buttonquail was not in query. An uncomfortable conclusion of mistaken id was being drawn.

“All people was going to the identical web site to search for the hen after which it might change into a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he says.

Which led to an much more troubling conclusion: that the buff-breasted buttonquail was in a lot deeper bother than already believed.

Webster, Watson and the Rares group nominated the hen to be moved from endangered to critically endangered standing below state and federal laws. The Queensland authorities accepted the advice in late 2022. The buff-breasted buttonquail continues to be listed as endangered below the federal Environmental Safety and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

In search of buttonquail in all of the incorrect locations

Richard Schodde, an eminent Australian botanist and ornithologist agrees with Webster that human psychology has performed a job in making a delusion across the species.

“Individuals exit in that nation, flush a giant buttonquail below their toes, and assume the one factor it may be is a buff-breasted buttonquail. And so they all need to say they’ve seen one,” he says.

Schodde believes buff-breasted buttonquail had been by no means current on the northern Atherton Tablelands. There’s, he says, a biogeographical divide from Cooktown northwards, with its personal grasses and eucalypts – principally Darwin stringybark – which the buff-breasted buttonquail prefers.

In principle, Schodde says, which means that buff-breasted and painted buttonquail shouldn’t exist alongside one another.

“They’ve bought to maintain looking out up round that nation the place McLennan first discovered it, and in floristic habitat prefer it elsewhere on the peninsula – that’s the way in which to do that job.”

However not all scientists share Schodde’s view. “We all know so little in regards to the buff-breasted buttonquail that it’s very onerous to be definitive about habitat preferences,” says Stephen Garnett, co-author of The Motion Plan for Australian Birds. He notes that pastoralism and altered fireplace regimes have dramatically modified the panorama since McLennan’s observations.

Regardless, Schodde says the sooner perception {that a} inhabitants of buff-breasted buttonquail appeared safe on the northern Atherton Tablelands had created complacency across the true standing of the species.

Regardless of the passage of a century and his failure thus far to search out the hen, Webster stays assured the buff-breasted buttonquail nonetheless exists.

“Basically, all the survey effort for this species has been carried out in areas the place they don’t happen,” Webster says. “And never simply myself, clearly – everyone.”

One factor is for certain. If the buff-breasted buttonquail continues to be on the market, it’s extraordinarily uncommon.

This article by Andrew Stafford was first printed by The Guardian on 28 December 2023. Lead Picture: An illustration of the buff-breasted buttonquail by John Keulemans, printed in The Birds of Australia (1911). {Photograph}: John Gerrard Keulemans.

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