Local wildlife groups have confirmed sightings of the eastern ground parrott and the long-nosed potoroo in the area around Maria River and Limeburners Creek Nature Reserve.

Working alongside the National Parks and Wildlife Service, local wildlife expert Bernard Whitehead has captured images of both species using infra-red and night-vision cameras.

Mr Whitehead said two of the rare ground parrots were spotted near Limeburners last week.

“We haven’t had documented evidence of the ground parrot in this area since the 1970s,” he said.

“We’ve seen it occasionally, but now we have captured images of it.”

The ground parrot is about the same size as a rosella and does fly, but spends up to 90 per cent of its time in the undergrowth.

It is one of only three species of ground-dwelling parrots in the world, the most famous of which is the New Zealand kakapo.

The discovery plugs a gap in the species’ distribution in NSW.

Previously known populations were clustered between Evans Head and Corindi in Broadwater, Bundjalung and Yuraygir national parks.

But there was a huge gap south to the next known populations in Barren Grounds and Budderoo National Park, near Wollongong, and others even further south around Jervis Bay.

Mr Whitehead said he had also captured images of the long-nosed potoroo, another largely unknown species in the region and a member of the threatened species list.

He said scat analysis had confirmed the sighting.

The potoroo, a small hopping marsupial, is considered vulnerable throughout Australia and is rarely glimpsed in the wild.

Better indicators of its presence are the runways it makes through the undergrowth and the hollow diggings it leaves behind when feeding on underground roots and fungi.

It has a patchy distribution across south-eastern Australia and is only known from a small area of southern Queensland that extends into northern NSW and in southern Victoria.