canberrabirds

Common Garden Birds - then and now

To: "'Duncan McCaskill'" <>
Subject: Common Garden Birds - then and now
From: "Peter Ormay" <>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 21:49:46 +1000

Hello Duncan,

Thank you very much for extracting the info and distributing it.

 

I suspect some of the sites included in the data were not active in 1981-82 because of the presence of the Eurasian Coot. Is this so?

Cheers

Peter

 

From: Duncan McCaskill [
Sent: Wednesday, 25 June 2014 1:59 PM
To: canberra birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] Common Garden Birds - then and now

 

Its nearly then end of another Garden Bird Survey year. The week starting today is the last reporting week of the year and is 8 days long. The first week of the new year starts on Thursday July 3.

 

Here, for your interest, is a comparison of the top 30 birds for the first year of the survey (1981-82) and the last year of the survey (2012-13), ranked by the abundance measure A. (A is the average number of birds recorded each site each week, including zero records). Also shown is the reporting rate (R) and distribution (F). (All measures are explained in the Annual Bird Report.)

 

Species with a big decline in A are coloured red, species with a big increase in A are coloured blue. For these tables (unlike the ones the Annual Bird Report) I have excluded rural GBS sites.

 

Garden Birds, Top 30 by Abundance (Urban Sites only)
1981-82

Rank

Bird

2012-13 Rank

A

R %

F  %

1

Common Starling

20

15.44

73

100

2

House Sparrow

8

8.04

75

100

3

Galah

2

6.77

70

100

4

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

24

5.73

28

83

5

Silvereye

3

5.62

64

92

6

Pied Currawong

4

4.43

66

92

7

Australian Magpie

5

2.68

85

100

8

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

1

2.37

42

92

9

White-naped Honeyeater

52

2.29

13

75

10

Crimson Rosella

6

2.00

58

100

11

Rock Dove

13

1.78

24

73

12

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

21

1.76

41

94

13

Magpie-lark

10

1.67

62

98

14

Eastern Rosella

19

1.58

58

96

15

Silver Gull

56

1.51

2

10

16

Red Wattlebird

9

1.43

54

94

17

Noisy Friarbird

51

1.41

46

96

18

Common Blackbird

26

1.15

51

81

19

Spotted Pardalote

27

1.12

26

73

20

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike

44

1.00

51

96

21

Striated Pardalote

32

0.97

30

58

22

Australian Raven

16

0.84

43

87

23

Gang-gang Cockatoo

18

0.80

25

75

24

White-throated Needletail

81

0.78

2

29

25

Laughing Kookaburra

45

0.64

35

85

26

Fuscous Honeyeater

126

0.62

9

44

27

European Goldfinch

50

0.62

22

73

28

Red-rumped Parrot

28

0.44

13

46

29

Eastern Spinebill

30

0.43

22

79

30

Willie Wagtail

47

0.39

29

96

 

 

 

Garden Birds, Top 30 by Abundance (Urban Sites only)
2012-13

Rank

Bird

1981-82 Rank

A

R %

F  %

1

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

8

8.53

88

100

2

Galah

3

6.57

82

100

3

Silvereye

5

4.17

54

93

4

Pied Currawong

6

3.92

85

97

5

Australian Magpie

7

3.53

91

100

6

Crimson Rosella

10

3.28

85

100

7

Crested Pigeon

129

3.07

77

100

8

House Sparrow

2

3.05

40

70

9

Red Wattlebird

16

2.31

84

99

10

Magpie-lark

13

1.98

77

99

11

Superb Fairy-wren

35

1.89

48

93

12

Little Corella

N/A

1.82

17

67

13

Rock Dove

11

1.76

21

51

14

Australian King-Parrot

32

1.67

49

90

15

Eurasian Coot

43

1.65

3

6

16

Australian Raven

22

1.44

61

99

17

Common Myna

36

1.38

39

80

18

Gang-gang Cockatoo

23

1.30

26

61

19

Eastern Rosella

14

1.24

48

94

20

Common Starling

1

1.22

21

65

21

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

12

0.96

22

65

22

Weebill

33

0.93

30

54

23

Red-browed Finch

56

0.91

10

41

24

Yellow-faced Honeyeater

4

0.88

11

62

25

Australian Wood Duck

73

0.82

9

33

26

Common Blackbird

18

0.79

45

88

27

Spotted Pardalote

19

0.69

32

75

28

Red-rumped Parrot

28

0.62

13

43

29

Noisy Miner

31

0.56

16

36

30

Eastern Spinebill

29

0.55

39

87

 

Notes:

  • Little Corella wasn't recorded at all in 1981-82 and is now the 12th most abundant bird.
  • Most of the most abundant birds are also widely distributed (high F) apart from Silver Gull which was reported in huge numbers from a few sites in 81/82 and Eurasian Coot which is high in the most recent year because one site seems to be mostly Coot.
  • The GBS period covered the rise of the Crested Pigeon from almost nothing.
  • Many Honeyeaters have declined.
  • Starlings & Sparrows have declined.
  • The A measure is not a good indicator of landscape abundance when comparing wide ranging flocking birds like cockatoos against territorial birds like Magpies. Many sites would be counting the same large flocks of cockatoos, but there would be very little double counting of Magpies.

Duncan McCaskill

Garden Bird Survey Coordinator

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