As it’s a little wet for patrolling the woodlands, I
might raise a feature of the Canberra landscape important for birds but not
often recognised as such. This is the network of WIRES in the form of
power and telephone lines that
crosses and recrosses Canberra’s backyards. Some
people might regard these as a slight degradation of the view from the back
deck, but if offered a choice I would keep mine. Birds would certainly
vote in favour of them. Over the years a surprising range of species has
been observed wire-sitting, so that any unfamiliar blob noticed on the wires is
routinely investigated. I have found on these wires, to mention a
few: White-bellied Cuckoo-shrike, koel, Little Corella, Sacred
Kingfisher, Dollarbird, bowerbird, boobook and sparrowhawk, not to mention the
odd exotic parrot and the mammals, native and otherwise, for which the wire is
their own equivalent of the Gungahlin Drive Extension. All this in an
innerish suburb. In the below I have made the wires slightly more
conspicuous than they normally appear and added 2 species to illustrate the
point, easily recognised as a boobook and an Australian Kraven.
