Paradise Stuffed

Ink on watercolour paper

This drawing features an extinct Australian bird local to our area of Southern Queensland - the ‘Paradise Parrot’ (Psephotus Pulcherrimus, pulcherrimus meaning ‘most beautiful’).

A local cattleman and keen naturalist, Cyril Jerrard, kept detailed records of his sightings of the bird over a number of years, until his final sighting in 1927. He also produced the only photographs of the bird, setting up his camera near the birds’ termite mound nest.

When researching this bird for another artwork, a portrait of Jerrard with his beloved Paradise Parrot, I was struck and saddened by how many birds ended up as stuffed specimens in private homes and museums around the world. Many were sold live to collectors, but lived only a few months in captivity. Unfortunately the only colour photographs of the birds are of these taxidermied specimens, and it was this sad fact that inspired the idea behind this artwork.

The Paradise Parrot’s demise was not only due to the live bird trade, but also to changes to its habitat resulting from grazing, the use of fire, a reduction in the presence of native grass seeds, and the destruction and removal of termite mounds, in which they nested, for building roads, tennis courts, floors and ovens.

The tradegy of the Paradise Parrot is best described in Jerrard’s own writings:

The one undisguisable fact, however, is that the advent of the white man has spelled destruction to one of the loveliest of the native birds of this country. Directly by our avarice and thoughtlessness, and indirectly by our disturbance of the balance so nicely preserved by nature, we are undoubtedly accountable for the tragedy of this bird.

- Cyril Jerrard

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