Re: Swifties in the Hunter! (a Regent HE bent added)

Steve Roderick wrote "The lack of any reports from Swamp Mahogany and the heavy flowering Spotted Gum, tells me this will be the upper Hunters year. Regents will come but most likely a bit later."

It will be very interesting to see exactly what transpires in regards Regent Honeyeaters this winter.  

There is reasonable flowering of White Box west of the ranges, including in the Capertee Valley.  When this happens there is usually little movement of Regents towards the coast.  At the moment there are reasonable numbers of Regent Honeyeaters in the Capertee Valley (and I haven't had a chance to have a really good look to see how many there are yet) suggesting that this will the case this year.  The last time we had reasonable numbers of Regents in the valley during May was in 1997 when White Box was also flowering.  That year we had something like 400 Regents in the valley by August.  150 of these birds were roosting communally in regrowth Red Gum which made for an impressive sight.

I urge you to look carefully for Regents (they tend not to as noisy and conspicuous as Swift Parrots and hence easily overlooked) and please report them promptly (as Swift parrots should also be reported to Debbie Saunders  ).  It will be fascinating if Steve's Regents are just the start of birds being located in the Hunter Valley Spotted Gum.  Some birds may have dispersed and moved coastward before the White Box started flowering.  It was interesting that the Capertee Valley birds loitered in the valley before the White Box started flowering.  We could see it was well budded but have birds also an ability to assess the flowering potential of these trees before they commence flowering?

Cheers

David Geering
Regent Honeyeater Recovery Coordinator
Department of Environment & Conservation
P.O. Box 2111
Dubbo  NSW  2830
Ph: 02 6883 5335 or Freecall 1800 621 056
Fax: 02 6884 9382



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