wrote:
>
> Another little local difficulty: a proposal to fell some
> "significant" cypresses around a golf course.
>
> Do cypresses have any particular value for birds or other
> wildlife?
>
> I know larger birds nest in them around here (magpies, ravens,
> magpie-larks, butcherbirds, frogmouths and, possibly, goshawks
> and herons), with rosellas sometimes using holes in the trunks.
> Other species roost in them, eg. the local crested pigeons seem
> to prefer them as roosting sites.
>
> But I suspect they don't provide any food and in the longer term
> it would certainly be preferable to have native trees plus
> understorey rather than these colonial relics.
>
> Michael Norris
> Bayside Friends of Native Wildlife, SE Melbourne
>
Hullo Michael,
A vexed question. Cypress nuts are certainly eaten by cockatoos, various
species, and they do provide nest and lookout sites for larger species
and for possums.
They are however a damned nuisance from many points of view to anyone
living close to them. I write with feeling - what used to be vegetable
beds in my back yard are now shaded for the whole of winter by my
neighbours' cypress tree. They are also soil robbers par excellence,
sucking up all moisture and making it impossible for any undergrowth to
survive.
With luck it should be possible to replace them with some gums and
some wattle etc. understorey - but where are the displaced birds to
survive while gums are growing? Perhaps the solution might be removal of
most of the cypresses and interplanting with natives? - but then there's
the soil robbery aspect to contend with.
It's a pity that the people who value them as 'part of the skyline'
never seem to live immediately underneath them.
Anthea Fleming in Ivanhoe
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