I have about 15 minutes of film of this Regent
Honeyeater in this set of ironbarks in the Belconnen Labour Club car park. (I
am not aware of other records though of course could well be.) It was probably
the most active Regent Honeyeater I have ever seen. I also recall a time when I
was at Kambah village shops where there are many Ironbarks and David McDonald
told me he saw a Regent Honeyeater above my car.... The general principle of
linkages between bits of available habitat is surely important for birds like
that (in what little there is left).
Philip
From: Mark Clayton [ Sent:
Thursday, 21 May 2015 10:29 AM To: 'Martin Butterfield'; 'COG
List'
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] Ironbarks
Martin,
Having driven past the site quite a few times recently on
Canberra buses while I can’t drive, I hold grave fears for the ironbarks in the
Belconnen Labour Club car park. There is a sign on the eastern edge of the car
park stating that the (?) Government is after expressions of interest in
developing the site which I assume means more high-rise units. I have written
to the Environment Minister about other conservation issues but as far as I am
concerned he is “wasted space” and really appears to have no great interest in
the environment at all. Regent Honeyeaters have been recorded in that general
area not to mention the many hundreds of Superb Parrots that in the past have
used the flowering trees as a food resource. It is all very well putting in
nature reserves around the edges of Canberra but they need to be linked so that
things can actually get to them. One just has to look around Canberra to see just
how many areas that were once bush now have some sort of development on them.
We are fighting a losing battle!! So much for the “Bush Capital”!
mark
From: Martin Butterfield
[ Sent: Thursday, 21 May 2015 9:54 AM To: COG List
Subject: [canberrabirds] Ironbarks
In my blogpost
yesterday I included a photo of a flowering ironbark at Pine Island and
commented how this was not far from where a regent Honeyeater was seen in a
similar tree last year. This leads me to think of the trees at the rear
of the Labour Club in Belconnen, which when flowering attract a very good crop
of large honeyeaters. Do those trees still exist or have they - like most
everything in that area - been bulldozed and built over?
