canberrabirds

Bird Breeding Season

To: "'Philip Veerman'" <>, "COG-L" <>
Subject: Bird Breeding Season
From: "Lindsay Hansch" <>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 14:08:09 +1000

Hi Philip

 

Quite right.  I was only reflecting on my own data and observations over the past ten or so years.  On the basis of that, it appears that this was a poor breeding season at my site.

 

Regards

 

Lindsay

 


From: Philip Veerman [
Sent: Monday, 21 April 2014 7:03 PM
To: 'Lindsay Hansch'; 'COG-L'
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Bird Breeding Season

 

Over the history of the GBS (although I don't know the last 10 years), sites with habitats for breeding of water birds have been few and far between. I would not think there is enough old data on water bird breeding to make a comparison. Such as I did in The GBS Report for the low level of breeding in year 2 (a drought year). Indeed  Appendix 2 shows the only water bird breeding records were Aust Wood Duck (24 records) & White-faced Heron (2 records) in the whole 21 years.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lindsay Hansch [
Sent: Monday, 21 April 2014 3:57 PM
To: COG-L
Subject: [canberrabirds] Bird Breeding Season

Reviewing my Garden Bird Survey numbers recently, it occurred to me that this season gone was a particularly poor breeding one for Jerrabomberra.  Our resident pair of Swans had a failed attempt in Spring and so far have not attempted an Autumn nesting.  We usually see around 20 young Swamp Hens per season, this year we had only 5 from two nests.  Moorhens produced only 2 young – usually at least 12-15.  No Coots produced at all.  Even our resident pair of Magpies produced only 1 young for the year and I did not see a Magpie Larks nest.  There were no Grebes nesting and only one family of Black Ducks. The exception has been Crimson Rosellas with significant numbers of green birds around.  I wonder if this poor season is reflected elsewhere?  A possible reason for the poor return on water birds may be the decline in typhus reeds around the local lake for which most birds rely on for nest sites.

 

Regards

 

Lindsay Hansch  

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