Syd, if I'm ever lucky enough to get to your neighborhood again,
perhaps we can journey to Lord Howe Is. and do some recording. Sounds
like a terrific place and thanks for the narrative.
Bernie
>WARNING: Long posting and a few paragraphs at the end concern bird song.
>You may wish to delete now.
>Hello Martyn,
>
> In the course of your sounding off about Man's devastation
>of this beautiful planet, you wrote, apropos of Bernie's Galapagos/Rio Napo
>Ecuador trip:
>
>>
>> I can not picture roosters sounding off in a rain forest!
>>
>
>That comment caught my eye, for I was saddened to hear roosters sounding off
>in the rainforest on Lord Howe Island.
>
>Apart from being one of the most beautiful small (16 square km) islands in
>the world , LHI is a rarity in that it was never invaded by mankind prior to
>its discovery by the British in 1788. It's an isolated speck in the Pacific
>580 km east of Australia, the nearest land, and apparently the Polynesian
>and Melanesian navigators never chanced upon it. Just about Paradise on
>Earth, it must have been, until the Brits found it. We humans have made up
>for lost time since, and exterminated a number of species. Rats from a
>wrecked ship have been part of it. In recent times, feral goats and pigs
>have been eliminated but rats are far more difficult, with the Pied Piper
>just a long gone legend.
>
>It's a volcanic island with two high peaks, Mts Gower & Lidgbird. The top
>of Mt Gower (875m) is accessible, just, but the Island administration
>requires visitors not to go there unless with a local guide. There is no
>mountain rescue team; the top is often in cloud; and there are only two ways
>down: the single very steep climb you came up, or fall to your death down
>vertical cliffs.
>
>The top is a miniature plateau. It's a cloud forest clothed in moss and
>almost every plant you see there is found nowhere else except on LHI. A
>magical place.
>
>The Australian Flora (vol 49) records 241 species of indigenous plants for
>LHI, of which 105 (43%) are endemic.
>
>But although humans have created havoc there, perhaps three-quarters of the
>island is still natural, at least to the extent that the original vegetation
>has never been cleared. Rats, and a serious weed problem (218 species of
>naturalised exotic plants) mean it is not entirely natural. But the
>island administration aims to keep it as natural as possible. Most of the
>island has been made Permanent Park reserve - the equivalent of a national
>park.
>
>So I was surprised and saddened one morning when out before dawn hoping for
>a tape recording of the Woodhen, a flightless Rail with some very
>interesting calls, (which I didn't get anyway), to hear a rooster or
>roosters crowing in the rainforest up on the lower slopes of Mt Gower.
>
>The Woodhen is a species saved from extinction. It was nearly wiped out and
>certainly would have been but for the inaccessibility of the tops of the two
>mountains. Pigs and goats couldn't get there, and apparently the rats
>didn't. A small population (30 maybe?) survived on the mountain tops and
>were the nucleus for a successful recovery plan which has seen them restored
>to many of their old haunts on the island.
>
>Originally the Woodhen was probably the only bird feeding on the
>invertebrate fauna of the rainforest litter - easy pickings - and they never
>bothered to learn to scratch; just push the litter aside with their beaks
>and eat. So when I decided to weed an area being choked by Crofton-weed,
>the local woodhen was delighted to follow me around for the freshly
>disturbed litter that had previously been inaccessible to it. Didn't seem
>to realise however, that when I sat down for a rest, there was nothing on
>offer, and it would come up and look questioningly at me. Even climb over
>my extended legs.
>
>But LHI birds are friendly like that. A delightful experience is to stand
>on the cliff-top at Malabar with the Pacific a few hundred metres below your
>feet, and have a Sooty Tern riding the up-draft to remain poised in mid-air
>staring at you from about a metre away - and occasionally pedalling like mad
>with its webbed-feet to maintain its stationary position.
>
>On mainland Australia the Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica) is a wary bird.
>On LHI I've often seen them strolling along the verandah of a resort
>apartment looking for crumbs. And on one occasion out in the rainforest, a
>family group of five walked past my feet as I stood still on a Mutton-bird
>path. One even paused and considered walking between my boots, then decided
>not to.
>
>The endemic subspecies of Currawong (Strepera graculina crissalis) has some
>fascinating songs markedly different from those on the Australian continent.
>And as Ian Hutton points out in his book Birds of Lord Howe Island, they are
>extremely curious birds. A currawong, he writes, "will often locate hikers
>on the Island's walking tracks, and follow them with beady-eyed curiosity,
>hopping from tree to tree".
>
>LHI has only a small number of Oscines but as they have come from afar they
>have interesting song variants developed in their splendid isolation. The
>European Blackbird and Song thrush are relatively recent arrivals. Both
>species were introduced into Australia and New Zealand, but they found their
>own way to LHI probably from New Zealand.
>
>I'm not competent to compare them with the European originals, but the
>Thrush at least, has developed an Australian 'flavour' to its song, by
>incorporating mimicry of the Australian Magpie-lark (Grallina cynoleuca).
>
>Perhaps the best songster of LHI is the Golden Whistler, again an endemic
>subspecies (Pachycephala pectoralis contempta) with songs markedly different
>from those of the mainland G. whistlers.
>
>And the Island really is a paradise for the terns - not a single seagull to
>take their eggs or chicks.
>
>Cheers
>
>Syd Curtis (Brisbane, Australia)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
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