The current
discussion on honeyeater movement is very interesting. The long-term drought has
resulted in diverse impacts and responses by birds. It is certainly a time to be most alert
to what is happening to our birds.
Yellow-faced
Honeyeater (YFH): Along with Nicki Taws? report on the April 07 honeyeater
migration in the May 07 Gang-gang, I agree that ?this season it also seems that
the honeyeater migration began unusually early with large numbers reported
moving in mid-March?Perhaps the prolonged dry summer has depleted food resources
in the mountains...?. This is echoed in other comments on the chat line (e.g. by
Harvey) and would indicate
migration a month earlier than
usual (also Lindsay's obs.). In addition I could envisage that many birds may
have simply drifted out of the ranges early to sites with better resources, thus
reducing further YFH numbers that would normally have been recorded along
traditional migration routes in the ACT
I feel drought related food shortages can at least explain some other
observations too.
Noisy Friarbird
(NF): The mass flowering of Yellow Boxes and other eucalypts from the end of
last year attracted many NFs, most memorable at Mulligan?s Flat. Flowering
finished around mid February, and NFs quickly disappeared from our area, in fact
about a month earlier than is the ?norm?. Counts I have done at one site support
the strong decline of NF numbers around mid February. Any birds seen later were
largely birds passing through from outside our range, as was the consensus
expressed by several members on the chat line. It would seem that not much to
eat was left for this species, in contrast to other years when the area could
sustain them for longer.
Red Wattlebird
(RW): We had recently on the chat line several reports of impressive mass
migration of RWs on the coast (Marnix, Harvey, Noel) , even locally migrating
groups of 100+ have been seen (incl. by myself), the largest groups the
respective observers had recorded locally. This made me conscious of something I
had noted for some time in areas I tend to visit in Canberra: RW numbers are
currently very low, even our local garden residents have gone, certainly a
first, just a few birds appear every now and then from surroundings. My guess is
that even our RWs suffer from food shortages and have moved on/are moving on,
they may even have bolstered the numbers of RWs seen migrating on the coast. I
saw the first migrating flock of 40 birds already on 31.12.06 near
Bungendore
Current climate conditions have also given us various
exciting records of inland species. We have witnessed the notable opportunistic
breeding response of waterbirds to the Jan/Feb rains (something you only read
about, but we now could witness it in our area), but equally we can see declines
in many species, poor breeding success, earlier than usual departures etc. These
kinds of impacts of the drought may have not yet been fully appreciated.
Michael
Lenz
