Following earlier discussion about whether Crested Pigeons on the
Mornington Peninsula were escapees, I asked John Bottomley to extract
recent records from the Geelong Field Naturalists Club data base. We don't
think ours are escapees. These records are also relevant to Tim Dolby's
recent question after seeing CPs at Point Cook though we would not consider
Point Cook to be part of the Geelong district. (Too close to Melbourne.)
From John Bottomley:
Here are all the records since early last year. Individual records have been
provided by quite a few members with Marilyn Hewish, Rohan Bugg, and
Jocelyn Calvert and I having
the most I think. The records mark the beginning of "the invasion" I think.
I don¹t believe for a moment that these are unrelated records of escapees.
There is an inexorable geographic logic to the pattern. Some of the first
records and the earliest verbal reports were from the Werribee River Valley
at Exford, Cobbledicks Ford and Werribee. Then they moved across the
Werribee Plains and appeared between Anakie and Lara. They have recently
been seen South and West of Geelong as we suggested would be the case last
Winter. The group of six or so that was regularly seen at Western Gateway
Road West of Lara on the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Road disappeared during
breeding season only to turn up again in greater numbers last week (last
week of Feb)! Marilyn
is intending to present a map of the records in the upcoming [Geelong]
Bird Report.
Birds have been resident in Ballarat for some years by all accounts so I
don¹t see why a move South into what is increasingly dry country should be
seen as hard to understand.
Date seen Number seen Location
31/3/00 11 Price Reserve Werribee.
2/4/00 2 Carrs Road between Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
and Geelong-Ballan Roads.
3/4/00 12 Exford Weir.
13/4/00 20 Sayers Road Werribee.
16/4/00 1 2 kms South of Bacchus Marsh.
14/5/00 1 2 kms South of Bacchus Marsh.
28/5/00 6 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
6/6/00 2 Carrs Road between Geelong-Bacchus Marsh and
Geelong-Ballan Roads.
7/6/00 14 Werribee South, Price Reserve.
10/6/00 2 Carrs Road between Geelong-Bacchus Marsh and
Geelong-Ballan Roads.
10/6/00 1 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
10/6/00 2 2 kms South of Bacchus Marsh.
21/6/00 6 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
21/6/00 1 Carrs Road between Geelong-Bacchus Marsh and
Geelong-Ballan Roads.
2/7/00 1 South of Balliang on Box Forest Road.
15/7/00 2 2 kms South of Bacchus Marsh.
15/7/00 2 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
29/700 4 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
3/8/00 1 Werribee Park.
5/8/00 2 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
11/8/00 1 Sayers Road, Werribee
15/8/00 1 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
19/8/00 1 Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Road at Little River
Bridge.
20/8/00 3 West of Melton Reservoir.
28/8/00 1 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
13/9/00 1 2kms South of Bacchus Marsh.
2/10/00 2 Bences Road, Long Forest.
16/10/00 2 Marshall.
20/10/00 1 Exford Weir.
22/10/00 1 Long Forest.
1/11/00 1 Exford Weir.
4/01/01 8 West of Exford Weir.
13/01/01 1 Farmland adjacent the Long Forest.
14/01/01 1 Hospital Swamp.
20/1/01 1 Freshwater Creek
30/1/01 6 West of Exford Weir.
4/2/01 1 Freshwater Creek
8/2/01 3 West of Exford Weir.
24/2/01 9 West Gateway Road at the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh
Road.
Thanks John. For those who live elsewhere, Geelong is southwest of
Melbourne in Vic. All these places are northeast, north or northwest of
Geelong except Freshwater creek, Hospital swamp and Marshall which are south.
Crested pigeon records.doc
Description: MS-Word document
Margaret Cameron
4 Connor Street
East Geelong, Vic. 3219
Australia
Phone 61 3 5229 9792
Fax 61 3 5229 1520
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