birding-aus
David Geering wrote:
>
> birding-aus
>
> Nigel wrote: "Would people agree that, generally speaking, the best way to
> reduce
> introduced bird numbers is to plant more native trees and replace exotics?"
>
>When I first moved into my current house 15 years ago there were virtually no
>native plants and very few native birds except for silvereyes in the
>cottoneaster. Since then I have systematically changed over the garden to
>almost pure Australian plants. This has certainly brought about a change in
>the birdlife with over 90 native species on my garden list.
However, beware! Do not plant large numbers of hybrid grevilleas eg.
Robyn Gordon, etc. As these plants flower for 365 days of the year you
will quickly have a red wattlebird or a flock of noisy miners take up
residence. Unfortunately, these large honeyeaters are highly aggressive
and will drive away all the small birds so that only other large
aggressive birds such as magpies, butcherbirds, etc. will visit your
backyard.
By all means plant grevilleas but plant true species that only flower
for limited periods of the year. This way the large honeyeaters don't
get established but do what they are supposed to do, ie. move about
following the various flowering periods of all the plants.
By the way, while native birds have increased significantly, we still
get large numbers of indian mynas and starlings although sparrows have
decreased in mumber.
The above comments apply to Sydney only.
Graham Fry
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