North Lakes is the third of a group of large scale [suburb level]
residential developments established on the urban fringes of Brisbane.
It has gained a bit of a reputation amongst the birding community due to
its use of mallards as flag bearers for life in harmony with nature.
I happened to be in that distant neck of the woods last week and had the
opportunity to have a bit of a chat with some of the managers there. On
the mallard front, they said that mallards were widespread through
Australia.
There are some positives on the environmental front, bearing in mind
that a significant proportion of the people living there will be
commuters. One is the way they have developed their waterways to manage
stormwater runoff etc - basically the water should be cleaner when it
leaves the area than when it flows in [the power of natural processes
etc].
In particular, they have designed the system - ponds, reed beds, lakes
etc so that there is plenty of fish and waterfowl habitats. At this
early stage, there are egrets, cormorants, darters, spoonbills,
swamphens and mallards using the water, and fairywrens and brown
honeyeaters in the riparian vegetation. The waterside plantings are
such that it is likely at some future stage that reed warblers,
cistacolas and possibly grassbirds, rails and crakes may take up
residence. At this stage, there are paths running around the main
waterbody as well as a bird observation spot. The local coffee shop
also has decks overlooking the lake.
The bottom line is that in a few years time, twitchers searching for the
SIPOs at Woody Point may have an option of doing a bit of lakeside
birding over a flat white rather than watching the parades in the
Fishbowl.
Laurie.
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