Noisy Miners taking over

 
Hello everyone,

FYI there is now a substantial body of robust data (new scientific papers on the subject appear every few months on average) indicating Noisy Miners pose a major threat to woodland birds across their entire range from northern Qld to Tasmania. Some would go so far as to say they are the major ongoing threat to some species of woodland bird. NMs are one of the few bird spp to have increased in range (if not number) in the period between the two Birds Australia atlasses.

Habitat fragmentation has most likely contributed to this but NMs (and to a lesser extent Yellow-throated and Bell Miners) appear to be unique in their domination of food and breeding resources to the exclusion of all other similar-sized passerines and some non-passerines. (They have been dubbed a 'despotic' species by one researcher.) To add a frisson of interest, the rise of NMs appears to be mirrored by a rise in Grey Butcherbird numbers - and there does indeed appear to be some sort of symbiotic relationship (although robust data are currently lacking), i.e NMs 'hold the fort' against all comers while GBs offer 'first strike capability', the trade-off presumably being that GBs get the pick of prey animals too big for NMs.

Ironically, vegetation corridors may play right into the Noisy Miners' 'hands' as edge and corner habitat appear to favour 'despotic' behaviour most - they are least successful in large blocks of contiguous vegetation.

cheers

David Andrew