We picked up more than a hundred species around the Lockyer yesterday
afternoon. Although we tried for the Blue-winged Kookaburras and the
Red-backed Kingfisher we didn't see either - but we did find Australian
Spotted Crake and Spotless Crake at two different ponds. John Hadley
mentioned he had 4 Baillon's Crakes at his 'home pond' the other day. Maybe
it's a case of waters dropping so low as to bring these birds out into view.
Latham's Snipe too.
Back to the Blue-winged Kookaburras.
I posted a question recently about the likely survival chances of an
isolated population. I got a couple of off-line responses, but I'd like to
repeat the question and ask anyone who has any thoughts on the matter to be
kind enough to drop me a note. I don't fully understand how these things
work, and I guess I'd like to think that there might be a direction ahead
for these Lockyer Valley Blue-winged Kookas other than down.
The earlier posting read:
I saw two Blue-winged Kookaburras at the traditional location near Lake
Clarendon on Monday.
Can anyone tell me what the prospects are for a species' survival in an
isolated location once it gets down to, a remnant population of say one
family of four or five birds?
Once a group reaches these low levels, is it likely that it can survive
through a couple of generations by siblings pairing, awaiting the off-chance
recruitment of new members?
I've read that laboratory matings of siblings of some small vertebrates have
continued through many (10 or 20) generations sometimes with only quite
small genetic hiccups along the way.
Would anyone on the list care to offer some insight into the future
prospects for this isolated group of Blue-winged Kookaburras?
Bill Jolly
"Abberton",
Lockyer Valley, Queensland.
Visit our website at http://www.abberton.org
Email:
Ph: (+61) 7 4697 6111 Fax: (+61) 7 4697 6056
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