Blitz wind up

[Rob Geraghty via Canberrabirds <>]

I was in Namadgi on the weekend and I was actually surprised how many small Honeyeaters were around in some areas which had been burned in the fire. However, the wind on Sunday made it a bit harder.

Immediately after the fire, I saw more Gang-gangs in Canberra which presumably had been forced out of the ranges. Recently I've seen fewer.

Bernard O'Reilly in his book Green Mountains and Cullenbenbong recounted how birders had been advocating to maintain native forest around the margins of fields to provide shelter and nesting sites for birds which would help reduce pests. The trees could also provide shade for livestock, and reduce soil erosion. This approach doesn't seem to have been adopted in manyareas. :(  Many of the surviving trees line roads, which makes the birds frequent victims of car and truck strikes.

Some habitats like the mallee have been cleared to the point where the animals which evolved with them are gone.

It's a bit depressing.

On Mon, 23 Oct 2023, 12:50 Mark Clayton via Canberrabirds, <> wrote:

I know that Philip is a very good birder and for him to say that things are not good bird wise just backs up what I said in an email to Nicki this morning and have been commenting on for quite a few years now. Climate change with the two extremes in weather we have had, coupled with the excess removal of trees, both natural and planted, for the expansion of suburbia and on farmland, and the general “cleaning up” of paddocks has had a major impact on birds EVERYWHERE. I have been surveying birds both professionally and as an amateur for nearly 60 years. I think it is now time for Birdlife Australia, if it wants to continue as supposedly Australia’s premier birding organisation, to redo an “Atlas of Australia’s Birds”, I think they will get an almighty shock as to just what is happening. I can remember 30 – 40 years ago driving down country roads and seeing Willie Wagtails and Yellow-rumped Thornbills fly off the road, other Thornbill and fairy-wren species doing much the same. Now the occasional Magpie-lark, Apostlebird and a lot fewer White-winged Choughs are to be seen. There are some birds on the ACT”s Threatened Species list that I, and I know a lot of others, consider should not be on it, and a lot more that should. We are finding the same is happening with our bird banding site near West Wyalong, an area that still has a lot of native vegetation in the general area. I was surprised to find species like the Noisy Miner, Common Starling and Common Myna were in very few numbers in areas I have surveyed in previous years.

 

Be interested in hearing people’s comments.

 

Mark

 

Sent from Mail for Windows

 

From:
Sent: Monday, 23 October 2023 10:31 AM
To:
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] Blitz wind up

 

I did 10 sites over the 2 days, with about 95 km travel, which is the most travel I have done for birding for a very long time but probably a lot less than most other people. Even though pleasant being out, the low numbers of birds in species and individuals is getting concerning. For example at Castle Hill which in most years it has been so full it has been a struggle for just me to get to find most of what is there, yesterday I had to look pretty carefully to come up with the list I did. Though it was nice to be there. Previously it has had Hooded Robin, Brown Treecreeper, Diamond Firetail, Leaden Flycatcher, White-browed Woodswallow, none of them left (at least within the area I look at).

 

Good bits were a Tawny Frogmouth on nest with at least one chick in I think exactly the same spot on a tree as last year (or was it 2 years ago?). A pair of kestrels, male seen hunting and female seen flying around a group of trees so presumably nesting in one of them, although the tree they were nesting in 2 years ago has now fallen down. Unlike 2 years ago I was not accosted by a woman who saw me at Kambah Pool and I thought she wanted to know what I was looking at (the above mentioned Tawny Frogmouth on nest) but she saw I was standing still and rushed at me and launched a barrage of preaching Jesus at me. The car park at Kambah Pool on Saturday afternoon was totally full of cars, even along the access road.

 

Otherwise fairly ordinary.

 

Philip

 

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