Fleur asked:
Does anyone know if scientific work is being undertaken to examine the spread of these aggressive miners?
The answer is yes. Has been done for a long time. Of course one could ask questions about how scientific it is, in terms of hypothesis, testing, etc. The good
intent is there and supported by methods however there are so many variables involved, it can be hard to interpret results rigorously.
About Fleur’s last comment. Lyrebirds were introduced to Tasmania and for decades were mimicking the calls of
eastern whipbirds,
even though eastern whipbirds
don’t occur there. Reason: Lyrebirds learn most of their mimicry from their father and other males.
Philip
From: Fleur r Leary [
Sent: Tuesday, 3 April, 2018 11:04 AM
To: Canberra Birds
Subject: [canberrabirds] Advance of the Bell and Noisy Miners - out of area but not too far away .....
I spent the Easter weekend camping at Yerranderie (a former silver mining town just south of Kanangra Walls in the Blue Mountains). It is a small valley area surrounded by National Park. In the visitor book I noted a Sydney-based
ornithologists group had visited in May 1987 and left a list of the birds observed - a total of
59 species. This area has a very similar bird population to the bushy parts of the ACT so the 1987 list included: wedge tailed eagle, superb lyrebird, noisy friarbird, several honeyeater species including regent honeyeater, several thornbill species,
several cockatoo and parrot species, Aust raven, magpie, both grey and pied currawong, olive backed oriole, common bronzewing, crested pigeon, white throated tree creeper, scarlet robin, yellow robin, silvereye, southern boobook, owlet nightjar, tawny frogmouth,
welcome swallow, satin bowerbird, spotted and striated pardalote, grey and rufous fantail, painted button quail, superb fairy wren, white browed scrub wren, golden whistler, grey shrike thrush, black faced cuckoo shrike, white winged triller, laughing kookaburra
etc etc. Missing from the list were: noisy miners and bell miners.
Whilst I did not do a bird survey as such it was impossible to ignore the proliferation of bell and noisy miners around the camp ground. I estimated that there were
40+ bell miners and 20+ noisy miners. Does anyone know if scientific work is being undertaken to examine the spread of these aggressive miners? As a child it was something of a novelty to hear bell miners and I knew of them only in a few isolated spots.
Now they are appearing in places they never inhabited before.
As mentioned, I did not do a formal bird survey but in addition to the miners, I noted the following (some heard rather than observed): white necked heron (1), noisy friarbird (several), wood duck (6), glossy black cockatoo (2), yellow
tailed black cockatoo (3), black faced cuckoo shrike (2), crescent honeyeater (several), grey butcherbird (2), white throated treecreeper (many), masked lapwing (1), willie wagtail (1), magpie (2), grey fantail (1), white eared honeyeater (1), Aust raven (2),
southern boobook (1), spotted pardalote (several), eastern spinebill (several), superb lyrebird (1), pied currawong (many), crimson rosella (6), musk lorikeet (2), superb fairy wren (several). I did not see or hear any thornbills or robins. Given the call
of the lyrebird I assume eastern whipbirds and satin bowerbirds are around. Fortunately I did not see any starlings, common mynas or sparrows or other feral bird species.
