Along Ginninderra Creek behind Nicholls, there are areas of native grasses, reeds etc, These are a finch habitat. Numbers have been about the same for the
past 20 years. Large flocks of RB Finches, smaller numbers of DB Finches and even smaller numbers of DF Finches. I do have a bird feeder and daily about a dozen RBFs and 3 or 4 DBFs come to feed. I have never seen a DFF at the feeder but only in the tall grass
or nearby dense shrubbery.
From: Philip Veerman <>
Date: Wednesday, 23 January 2019 at 8:47 am
To: 'Con Boekel' <>, chatline <>
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] are Double-barred Finches declining in the ACT?
In general I expect there is a decline. Among the first times I visited Canberra my records at the time say “1 family Canberra Botanic Gardens 30 & 31-1-1974”.
So it was adults with DY. I even took some photos of them. And “common Canberra Botanic Gardens 10-2-1975”. I don’t know now what “common” meant to me then or whether my observations were typical, but in the 35 years since I have been a resident of Canberra,
I have not again seen them at Canberra Botanic Gardens. However I have encountered them several times recently at the National Zoo, Mugga Lane Tip (flocks near the green shed), they were generally present within past several years at the powerlines walk on
Mt Taylor. The other random places I have seen them seem to be declining recently. But on 28 December 2018 I posted this message “I was talking to another person who lives near Mt Taylor last week about the birds in his yard. He told me about having regular
flocks of Double-barred Finches attending his feeding tray.
Philip
From: Con Boekel [
Sent: Wednesday, 23 January, 2019 7:54 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] are Double-barred Finches declining in the ACT?
Having just drafted the text for this species for the forthcoming Annual Bird Report I can make the general comment that the statistics back up these anecdotal observations. In particular the abundance and reporting rate metrics are down significantly on
the 30 year average for both general records and Garden Bird Survey records.
regards
Con
On 1/23/2019 7:32 AM, calyptorhynchus wrote:
This is a sp I used to see quite a bit without looking for it, but recently I realise I have rarely seen them. I continue to see Red-browed Firetails commonly and Diamond Firetails uncommonly.
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