Good News for Aussie Swiftlets
Shirl & I have just spent 5 weeks censusing the swiftlets at
Chillagoe-Mungana, West of Cairns. The good news is that the last
two seasons have received normal rainfall, unlike the previous four
years, where La Nina has washed many nests from the roofs of the
caves. You can see some of the damage in the photos included in the
last two papers at the end of this web page
http://www.swiftsoftheworld.info/spplist.htm
At Mudlark and Hercules caves where there had been no birds roosting
or breeding in 2011, we found two and ten birds roosting. At
Swiftlet Scallops #2 Cave where only 2 birds were sleeping in 2011,
we found 20 roosting birds in June 2014.
Some other colonies had increased, but many are still lower than
normal. This is particularly true where feral cats have also been
hitting the colonies at the same time as the rain has been washing
nests off the walls and drowning eggs and birds.
The last bit of good news is that we found three colonies that were
unknown to us previously. One of them had 550 birds, the others 26,
and 60+.
Happy birding
Mike
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