A flash of lime green in the trees turned into something bird-watchers had not documented for a decade.

The blue-fronted lorikeet, a small parrot found only on Buru in Indonesia’s Maluku archipelago, was spotted during an April trek in the island’s remote highlands. The sighting was the first since 2014 and only the second record of the species since scientists first described it in the 1920s from seven specimens, the American Bird Conservancy said on June 3.

John Mittermeier, an ornithologist with the American Bird Conservancy and director of the Search for Lost Birds, saw two of the birds while trekking on Buru. “There’s this bright, lime-green lorikeet with a brilliant orange bill peering down at me through the leaves,” Mittermeier tells Smithsonian magazine.

The Search for Lost Birds is led by the American Bird Conservancy, Re:wild and BirdLife International. In 2025, the groups added the blue-fronted lorikeet to their list of lost birds, species that had not been documented in at least a decade.

“Experiences like this are the reason I love working on lost birds,” Mittermeier tells Smithsonian. “The fact that this lorikeet survives in the mountains of Buru and that we can have a chance to help protect it tells us there is hope for species and biodiversity in general. For me, a rediscovery like this is about hope.”

The bird had largely disappeared from view after it was first described from Buru’s lowland and mid-elevation forests in the 1920s. In 2014, ornithologist Craig Robson, leading a Birdquest tour, spotted at least two blue-fronted lorikeets and took the first known photographs of the species.

The latest sightings came during a 14-day expedition led by Indonesian mountaineering group Kanal Buru. The team included members of the American Bird Conservancy, Birdtour Asia and Yayasan Planet Indonesia, and followed a new route to the summit of Mount Kapalatmada, Buru’s highest peak at 8,850 feet.

After six days of climbing, Mittermeier made his first sighting on the mountain’s highland plateau. Two days later, the group photographed another blue-fronted lorikeet while eating breakfast. On their last morning in the highlands, they spotted a pair and captured the first known audio recordings of the species’ calls.

Mittermeier estimated the group saw at least nine individuals during the trip.

James Eaton, an ornithologist and tour leader for Birdtour Asia, described the bird as the group’s “holy grail.” “It’s a feeling adrenaline junkies would know well,” Eaton tells Reuters’ Marta Serafinko. “It makes all the researching, reading, plotting some of which are years in the making totally justified. It makes you feel alive. … These moments of joy and discovery are a healthy reminder of what a beautiful world is there.”

The small number of sightings suggests the birds live in a very limited area, likely in Buru’s high-elevation montane forests. Conservationists said they are relieved the species has not disappeared, but they are worried about pressure on its habitat.

“This bird inhabits areas under continuous pressure from deforestation, with a population estimated to be exceedingly small and vulnerable,” says Benny A. Siregar, Maluku coordinator for Burung Indonesia, also known as the Indonesian Wild Bird Conservation Association, in the statement.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature does not yet have enough data to decide if the blue-fronted lorikeet belongs on its threatened species list. Mittermeier also said other parrot populations in parts of Indonesia face trapping for the pet trade, and many island birds are threatened by introduced predators such as rats and feral cats.

Last year, researchers also found five bird species for the first time in more than a decade: the Bismarck kingfisher in Papua New Guinea, the Biak myzomela and broad-billed fairywren in Indonesia, and the Sulu cuckooshrike and rufous-breasted blue flycatcher in the Philippines.

“From a scientific perspective, all of these results are valuable,” Mittermeier says. “But from an emotional perspective, finding a lost species that appears to be doing well in good habitat, as seems to be the case with the [blue-fronted] lorikeet, is by far the best result. A moment like this, where a species is found and there is potential to protect it is the best possible outcome in the world of lost species.”

Read more from Smithsonian Magazine.