Though it was unfertilized and therefore never destined to become an animal, the discovery of a night parrot egg in Western Australia has jolted the nation’s indigenous conservation community into excitement and action.

Discovered last September in a vast and remote area called the Kimberly in Western Australia state, it’s hoped the egg can reveal some information about the bird’s breeding habits—of which virtually nothing is known.

The night parrot is one of the great natural enigmas left in the world: a parrot that flies but lives in burrows; that’s nocturnal, and virtually unobserved by modern science.

Indigenous communities like the Kiwirrkurra and Ngururrpa, on whose lands night parrots have been confirmed to survive, have a sight-unseen relationship with the night parrot, identifying it by its calls across the deserts and drylands of Western Australia and Queensland.

In 2013 a wildlife photographer captured video footage of a live bird in Queensland, confirming its existence for the first time in almost a century. Since then, they’ve been identified by their calls in two Indigenous Protected Areas (IPA) managed by the two communities mentioned above.

The Ngururrpa Rangers which manage the land on which the egg was found set up monitoring cameras in the burrows to see if it were part of an active nest. One thing that is known about these parrots is a young female’s first egg clutch is often infertile, as is common among many birds.

After ascertaining that no parents were returning to incubate the egg, the rangers used a “candle” test to see if it were fertilized or not.

“You can hold it up to the light and look through it, and if it’s fertile there’s a little baby bird growing on the inside. You can see dark shapes,” said Ngururrpa IPA coordinator Christy Davies, who confirmed to ABC it was infertile.

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The Ngururrpa IPA is home to the largest-known population of night parrots—about 50 it’s estimated, and it’s where one can find Nick Leseberg, one of the nation’s only night parrot experts.

“You’ve really got to understand their breeding biology, like what triggers breeding? When does it happen? What are they vulnerable to?” Leseberg told ABC News Australia. 

It’s hoped the egg will be able to help Leseberg and others answer some of these questions.

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In December 2023, GNN reported that, for only the fifth time, a night parrot’s call had been recorded—this time by a Kiwirrkurra ranger team in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia.

The calls are extremely valuable conservation data points, as they help define the bird’s current habitat areas. Once enough of these recordings have been taken, scientists studying the night parrot will be able to recommend specific spaces for conservation measures.