Following on from this earlier discussion, a sort of associate of mine (not a COG person) who lives on the western side of Mount Taylor (about 2 rows of houses
away) tells me he is now again getting up to 20 Double-barred Finches
visiting his garden, that has water and some seed put out. He tells me there are commonly 4 or 5 through a lot of the year but most years, as this one, numbers increase up
to the 10 to 20 range. I told him that is a good number. The seasonal pattern probably reflects breeding on Mount Taylor and accumulation of new young birds into flocks looking for new resources. Although I have encountered them on Mount Taylor many times,
I haven’t encountered that many.
Philip
From: John Harris [
Sent: Friday, 25 January, 2019 11:03 AM
To:
Cc: Philip Veerman
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] are Double-barred Finches declining in the ACT?
Thanks to everyone who helped answer my questions about the reasons for DB Finch decline. Reminding me to check the stats on our site was a helpful reminder. However, I was interested in the reasons. I think
ALL the suggested reasons are true. Habitat loss, kangaroo grazing, invasive non-native grasses, climate change, drought etc etc. My question was related to why they are declining while the RBF appears not to be. All those factors of habitat loss etc MUST
equally affect the DBF and the RBF. A very helpful observation came from Philip Veerman, which was that Canberra is at the edge of the DBF’s range but central to the RBF’s range. In other words, those negative factors will be initially more obvious in the
DBF numbers as it as already more marginal here anyway and therefore more susceptible to negative change..
