Gang-gang, Ainslie

["Kathy and John (home)" <>]

Pamela

 

We live in Watson and get a couple of Gang Gangs pretty regularly (probably every week). We have noticed though in the last few months that they have not been coming as regularly. Four weeks out of the last 10 we have only noticed one at a time and a couple of weeks we didn’t see any. Perhaps this just means they have been nesting somewhere. At times over the past years we have had 5-7 of them at once, which is very nice.

 

Cheers

Kathy and John

 

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From: martin butterfield [
Sent: Saturday, 7 November 2009 9:45 AM
To: Pamela Morris-Kennedy
Cc: Canberra Birds
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] Gang-gang, Ainslie

 

G'day Pamela

I have attached a spreadsheet showing the abundance of Gang-gangs in Ainslie-Watson and the Garden Bird Survey (GBS) as a whole  for the 27 years for which we have processed the results of the GBS.  (The 28th Year is still being processed.) 

The measure 'A' is the average number of birds of a species seen at a site for each week over a year.  For example in year 1 observers in Ainslie/Watson reported 203 Gang-gangs over the year, and their sites were 'operational' for 249 weeks, giving a value of A of 0.8153.

I haven't tried to analyse the chart in any detail, but the following points are quite clear:

• Gang-gangs have been reported from Ainslie/Watson every year that the Survey has been in action;
• The abundance of Gang-gangs in Ainslie/Watson varies quite considerably between years (especially in the latter half of the series) for which I have no ready explanation; and
• The abundance of Gang-gangs in Ainslie/Watson is much more variable than the same measure for the entire sample.  This could simply be due to the small sample in those suburbs.
• For the total series the shape of the graph suggests a wave shape - initial drop, then steady(ish) increase and then the start of a decline in recent years.  The correlation coefficient for a trend is 'reasonable ' at .61.

I hope this is of interest to you.

Regards

Martin Butterfield
GBS Coordinator.

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Pamela Morris-Kennedy <> wrote:

I don't often see them.  This could be the same pair seen in Foveaux St Ainslie last week (near Campbell St).
COuld someone more knowledgeable than me say how common / uncommon they are in the Ainslie / Watson area?
Pamela (new to list and awed by others expertise!)


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