Meet the Mount Pitt bird

The watercolour illustration of the Mount Pitt bird was probably painted in India. It is believed the painter used the skin of a preserved bird to complete the painting and that it was not painted from life.

The identity of the painter is not known. The artist is known as the Sydney Bird Painter and there are other examples of his paintings of birds from between 1780 and 1800.

Preliminary discussion

Find Norfolk Island on a map with your students, before discussing the following questions whilst viewing the image of the baby Mount Pitt bird:

• What type of bird do you think this might be?
• What do you think it might eat?
• Where do you think it might live?
• What does it remind you of?
• How old do you think this bird might be?
• Zoom in on the feather detail. Describe its feathers.
• Why do you think the bird has this type of feathers?
• Where do you think this bird might live?
• What is the bird doing?
• Why do you think its beak might have this shape?
• Why do you think the artist painted this image of the bird?

History of the Mount Pitt bird and Europeans

Share the following story with your students.

Norfolk Island was first colonised by East Polynesian people for a brief period about 400-500 years ago. The first European to sight the island was Captain James Cook in 1774. Norfolk Island was colonised by  a small group from the First Fleet, just months after the colony of Sydney was established. By 1790 the colonies in both Sydney and Norfolk Island were desperately short of food and supplies. The crops on Norfolk island had failed and the colonists faced starvation. The governor decided to send the two ships Sirius and Supply from Sydney to China, via Norfolk Island, to get provisions.

Unfortunately, the Sirius was shipwrecked off Norfolk Island. The shipwreck meant that the small and already hungry colony on Norfolk Island had 400 more mouths to feed. The arrival of the Mount Pitt birds, which nested on the top of Mount Pitt, in late March proved to be the settlement’s salvation. Unfortunately for the birds they had returned to Norfolk Island to breed just as food was in shortest supply for the colony. This lucky timing meant the Mount Pitt bird was also called the Providence Petrel. Providence refers to the belief that God is taking care of human beings. The Mount Pitt bird and its chicks and eggs became an important source of food.

These clumsy birds were easily killed. Colonists headed up the mountain at sunset when the birds returned in their thousands to their nests after hunting for food during the day. The colonists collected both the birds and their eggs as food. Some reports suggest that the Mount Pitt bird tasted like pigeon, which was considered a luxury food and a delicacy back home in England. The Mount Pitt bird, or Providence Petrel was also called a mutton bird because their meat had a high fat content like mutton.

Lieutenant Ralph Clark of the Royal Marines was on the Sirius as it travelled to Norfolk Island. His journal is in the collection of the State Library of New South Wales, and can be found here. Ralph Clark believed that up to 200,000 birds were killed as food over just three months in 1790. He tried to record the number of birds killed in his journal, and his final tally for 1790 was 172,184.

Perhaps surprisingly, the danger of over harvesting this valuable resource was quickly realised. Orders were issued limiting the numbers of birds which could be taken and the hours during which they could be hunted. Wanton cruelty was punished and attempts were made to preserve their habitat. Convicts who destroyed eggs or the burrows the birds nested in were punished. The ruling officer on Norfolk Island even attempted to prevent the forest habitat of the Mount Pitt bird from being cleared to help save the species. However by 1800 (only ten years after they began to be harvested) the Mount Pitt bird was extinct on Norfolk Island. Some estimates suggest that over one million birds were killed between 1790 and 1800.The birds only returned to the Norfolk Island area in 1985. About 100 birds are nesting on Philip Island, a small islet off the coast of Norfolk Island. Over a hundred years later it is believed none of the Mount Pitt birds will land or nest on Norfolk Island.