How hard can it be to find a Regent Honeyeater using radio tracking?

["wallaces" <>]

We happened to be in Chiltern on the day of the release of the Regent Honeyeaters bred by Taronga Zoo (17 April) so we joined in the event along with about 100 others.

After an instruction session, we formed a circle outside the taped area around the four tents holding the 38 birds to be released.  A small number of people slowly worked their way toward each tent, carefully opened the gauze door and then slowly retreated making sure they did not cross in front of the tent. Then we sat, and sat, and sat waiting for something to happen. Eventually about six birds emerged into the prepared foliage at the front of the first tent opened, and then flew as a group into the trees above us. Frustratingly they stayed still for a long time and this made them difficult to locate. After about 10 minutes they started to move around and flew off. More birds left the tents over the next half hour or so and one of these, colour banded red over yellow, landed near us and stayed in the same small tree for over 15 minutes giving plenty of opportunities for photographs and video. The aerial of the radio transmitter attached to the bird can be seen hanging down from near the end of the tail in the photograph.

Radio Transmitters were fitted to 25 of the birds. About 50 people spent the afternoon tracking the birds.  We joined Kate, Gianna and Dean and quickly determined that the two birds we had been given to track had not left the tents ? easy.  We had been told that it is not uncommon for birds to stay in the tent and at the end of the day 15 had not left.

As our birds had been easy to locate, four of us decided to track some of the other birds. After about an hour of following signals without any success, Gianna set the receiver to the frequency for bird 3.6. We headed off up the hill above the tents, meeting up with Matthew and Isabella who had  been allocated bird 3.6, but had become frustrated at following the signal but not being able to sight the bird. We joined them in the hope that the use of two receivers and six sets of eyes might make the task easier. After following the moving signal for about 150m, it stopped and was narrowed down to a group of four trees. Despite much looking the bird could not be located. Gianna kept checking her receiver and was sure it was in only one of the trees and focussed on a fairly small, thinly vegetated box. Surely the bird should be easy to see if it was in that tree. After what seemed like a long time, Gianna finally located the bird and between all of us we were able to confirm the band colours.

So to answer the question, it is easy to radio track a Regent Honeyeater which is inside a tent, but surprisingly difficult to locate them and get a visual sighting once they leave the tent. In fact it was so difficult to locate the birds even with radio tracking that it makes you realise just how easy it is to overlook the bird even when they are in high numbers, such as at the release site, but not calling much. At least that was our experience.

We can thoroughly recommend being part one of these releases if you get a chance. Everyone involved was friendly and encouraged participation.

Steve and Kath

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