York Olive Oil Co. -

Look who has landed at the York Olive Oil Co as part of the 2019 York Festival. It’s Percy, a Western Ground Parrot, a Wara Art giant straw sculpture who is part of the Wara Art Trail.

After visiting Percy and enjoying one of our award-winning ice creams you can carry on with the Wara Art Trail in York township, where you will find giant straw sculptures of a Bilby, Western Swamp Tortoise, Numbat, Rakali (Water Rat) and an absolutely huge walk-through Murray Cod. They are situated throughout the centre of York and you can find a guide map here.

The 2019 York Festival is on from 28 September to 13 October. The festival might finish then but Percy will be here for the rest of his natural life.

The creators of the Wara Art straw Western Ground Parrot, situated at the York Olive Oil Company

A word about the Western Ground Parrot, (Pezoporus flaviventris, or Kyloring in the Noongar tongue), one of the world’s rarest birds. Once found across the whole coast of south-west Australia, they are now almost extinct with fewer than 150 birds left in the wild. These occupy two Nature Reserves on the south coast of Western Australia. Bushfires in 2015 burnt much of the birds’ known habitat, further threatening the species’s already uncertain future.

The Western Ground Parrot is one of twenty bird species nationally which the Australian Government has prioritised for recovery and Perth Zoo are running a breeding programme. Read more about this rare bird and find ways you can help it recover at the Friends of the Western Ground Parrot website.