Woodland survey Mt Ainslie East, 3 April

[Michael Lenz <>]

The survey was conducted under overcast and calm conditions on 3 April 2014. The area was very dry (as no doubt the whole region is), and several sites were heavily overgrazed by kangaroos. 

Small woodland birds were a rarity, in fact I have never encountered such paucity of small species on any earlier woodland survey of Mt Ainslie, and what was there was only presented with a few individuals. Fortunately site 8 (out of 9) included the only MFF on the walk. Again the MFF comprised few individuals, but a couple of interesting species: 1 juvenile Horsfield's Bronze Cuckoo and an adult Shining Bronze Cuckoo.

Noisy Miners were present at 7 sites and were dominant at several of those.  Magpie-larks were found at 7 sites, an indication of how open and often rather bare the  ground was,. The most wide-spread species was the Crimson Rosella (at 8 out of 9 sites). Honeyeaters were represented with 1 Brown-headed HE in the MFF and a couple of Yellow-faced HE between sites. 34 species were recorded in total (27 at sites, of which 8 only in the MFF; and 7 species in between sites).

Michael Lenz