Vocal activity of the Eastern Ground Parrot (Pezoporus wallicus wallicus) and implications for acoustic monitoring efforts

ABSTRACT

Vocalisations are a key component of communication for species that employ crypsis. The Eastern Ground Parrot (Pezoporus wallicus wallicus) is one such species that lives within dense heathland habitats in eastern Australia. Passive acoustic monitoring is now a common method used for avian monitoring and conservation programmes. For implementation of this method to be successful, we require a minimum level of understanding of the environmental and behavioural factors that may influence vocal activity. We tested how Eastern Ground Parrot call rate and chorus duration fluctuated across key temporal, environmental and meteorological variations over one year using passive acoustic monitoring from one site. Season, moon phase and days since rainfall predicted vocal activity of the birds at this site. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering the behavioural response of species to environmental conditions to account for potential bias in the interpretation of passive acoustic monitoring data.

KEYWORDS:

• Call rate
• seasonality
• weather
• passive acoustic monitoring
• psittacines

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Gubbi Gubbi peoples, the traditional custodians of the lands of Noosa, of Elders past, present and emerging, on which this work was conducted. Many thanks to Dr Scott Burnett for discussions and advice during the initial stages of this project, Alina Zwar (Wildwise Environmental Services Pty Ltd) and Dr Ed Meyer for assistance with field data collection. We thank Future-plus Environmental Pty Ltd for logistical support, Jo Zadkovich (Queensland Parks Wildlife Service [QPWS]) and Harry Hines (QPWS) for facilitating access to the study area and ongoing liaison. The fieldwork (acoustic data collection) was conducted within QPWS’s conservation estate under scientific purposes permit (number: PTU18-001058), and Queensland animal ethics approval (number: CA2017/06/1074).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2023.2269575.