I have a few things to mention. This has been an unusual season in that I have had very few koels around the immediate area. There have also been few wattlebirds, which I attribute to the aggression of Noisy Miners,
at least 2 families of those having moved in about 5 years ago. I have seen miners chasing wattlebirds, koels and other bird species. A question is: why are miners here, when they are not in some other suburban areas? I know the theory that they avoid
areas with dense shrubbery (including, I suppose, dense garden shrubbery). I believe they are unusual, if present at all, in the Bot Gardens for example. I believe that the species is advancing, probably having colonized this neighbourhood from Mount Mugga,
via Callum Brae. I wonder if they will test acceptable limits of suburban gardens as the population builds up. I am seeing miners taking advantage of garden margins, typically advancing along lines of street trees, where they can feed on foliage and under
bark. They are certainly strong breeders.
A characteristic of this area is that it has a number of fairly open neighbourhood spaces, with poor shrub-level veg. Each has its families of miners. This is what they like – spaces with scattered trees, like some
schoolyards, and golf courses. Given that miners are so territorial, areas where they are dominant can be fairly easily demarcated. Shall we see more such areas, characterised by presence of miners and absence of wattlebirds and koels, and other birds?
Even so, I have still heard quite a few koels from 100m or so away, meaning a couple of streets distant, possibly from places that are still miner-free. Perhaps they are using richer gardens, nourished by deeper topsoil
than left on the rather rocky upper suburban slopes. Yesterday I had a rare nearby male koel. This was a first-year bird with a mixture of fresh black and worn brown plumage. The record tends to confirm my suspicion that Canberra is visited by a high proportion
of young birds. Typically, the bird was evicted from its perch by a busy miner.
