An early call has been made that the endangered orange-bellied parrot's future is secure for another year.

A second wild female bird has been found at Melaleuca in Tasmania's wild south-west, taking the total to 12 males and two females.

The birds migrate from Victoria and South Australia to the Tasmanian breeding ground each year.

Consultant ornithologist Mark Holdsworth said the second wild female was spotted on Monday morning.

"We got the word out today that second female has arrived, which is really pleasing and a tremendous relief," he told ABC Radio Hobart.

"We need a few more females yes but it's a good positive sign.

"There have also been some captive-bred birds been released so there's about about seven captive females out there so they'd be busy occupying nest sites at the moment," he told ABC Radio Hobart.

"So the species will survive at least another year, we know that.

"But we're really hopeful that we'll have a really good return and we're looking at maybe around 20 in total.

Hopes high for more female arrivals

Mr Holdsworth said that based on the annual survival rate he expected about half a dozen females birds to breed in the south-west this season.

"So the first two females that we've seen are those first year's birds and based on the annual survival we expect something like half a dozen," he said.

"That would be good if we get six of those return, that would be a very pleasing result and in fact that would be nearly twice as many females that arrived this time last year."

Despite the low numbers involved, Mr Holdsworth said the two birds could make the difference to the parrot's survival.

Mark Holdsworth holds juvenile parrots bred in captivity. ( Supplied: Mark Holdsworth )

"Unfortunately it's what we call the small population paradigm, that means when you get down to such low numbers the loss of just one or two individuals has a dramatic effect on the population," he said.

"It's hard to get up to a critical mass to build this population but of course we got tools that we can use to help that along."

Waiting game begins

Mr Holdsworth said the return of birds for the breeding season was an anxious time.

"There's a lot of effort being put into the releasing captive bred birds, and particularly females, to help bolster that wild population and there's other work looking at nest intervention to increase the reproductive success," he said.

"There's a lot of people working on the mainland also looking at helping the winter birds survive right through to be able to breed next year.

"But it is a waiting game at this time of year. We need to find out how many birds turn up but we're hopeful that we'll get a few more females.

"It makes everyone very anxious and and it's a difficult time of year for everyone involved."

Mr Holdsworth said that once the females do arrive, it is straight into the "mating game".

"Absolutely, the the females go straight to nests virtually the day they arrive and they spend about three to six weeks preparing the nest, in the nest boxes and sometimes wild nests," he said.

"The male does all the work, he comes and feeds her every day, every few hours and that's part of the pair bonding and they'll be laying eggs around early December to mid-December.

"Hopefully they'll be all fertile and we'll have heaps of young orange-bellied parrots by January."

Hopes for the bird's survival were also bolstered earlier this month with the return to the breeding ground of a nine-year-old male.

The birds usually only live for three years.