The drought broken??

John wrote that he recently read an article that stated "the drought had been well and truly broken in an area in northern NSW".

Hmmm.  I think the journalist that had written this might like to visit said area and speak to a few more people.  Yes, an area around Walget, Narrabri and north to the Qld border has recently been officially down-graded from drought to marginal.  Firstly, this is hardly well and truly broken. Secondly, a number of landholders in the down-graded area are not convinced that their area is out of drought.  

There has been rain across sections of northern NSW, fairly substantial falls in some areas and this has resulted in grass growth and the replenishment of water in dams (in some areas).  Other areas have had enough rain to stimulate grass growth but not replenish dams as there was no run-off.  The problem is we look at the green grass and think the drought is over.  In Dubbo we have seem the grass green up after a fall of rain only to see it brown off again within two weeks due to the lack of follow-up rain. Since I've moved into my new place 20km south of Dubbo two months ago we have had 40mm of rain.  Mind you, a damn sight more than any other two month period leading up to it.  Journalists are after sensation stories - "the drought is well and truly broken" makes better reading than "good rain has resulted in an improvement in the situation".  It takes more than a couple of showers of rain
  to break a drought - a period of above average rainfall is needed and we are a long way from that point.

Birdwise it's going to take a long time for bird numbers to improve.  Many of the small birds have undergone fairly serious population declines, which is pretty standard under the circumstances.  The problem facing them , however, is that fragmentation of habitat now means that populations of many species are smaller than they were pre European settlement.  It is harder for bird populations to build up gain - that's why so many of our woodland birds are making it onto Threatened Species lists.

Anyway, getting back to John's initial Comment  "a farmer that the Mitchell Grass was going mad in the area.  I remember that the mummified corpse of a Night Parrot was found in an area where the Mitchell grass had produced seed.  Given how dry the rest of the country is, it might offer a good chance to find a night parrot to visit the dams in the area."

My honest opinion is that the area that John asks about would not be habitat for Night Parrot as it's a long way east.  Besides it's probably already got thousands of very hungry drought-affected cattle on it already and chances are it will not have a chance to set seed.

Cheers

David Geering




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