G'day Russ,
I know you asked for private replies, but I thought members of the list may
be interested (even though the birds you seek are dreaded members of that
subclass of birds, the plastics).
I believe that Song Thrush is declining in the Melbourne area, at least in
the south eastern suburbs as it is no longer heard in many sites where you
could once hear them during their singing season which seemed to last
between July to January. They may be expanding into some fringing bushland
areas as has been posited by others in the past, but I personally have
little personal experience of this.
I suspect that there decline in suburban Melbourne can be attributed to a
decline in their main prey- the humble garden snail. While I have no data to
back this up, and I am sure many Melbournian gardeners would disagree with
me, I reckon that due to both snail baiting and the water restrictions of
the last few years there are simply fewer snails waiting to be feasted upon.
Another possibility is the explosion of aggressive nectar feeding species
such as wattlebirds, Noisy Miners and Rainbow Lorikeets has meant that the
rather placid Song Thrush is being harassed off their previous feeding
places.
Song Thrush can still be found in the Botanic Gardens, but even there they
are not the automatic dead certs they used to be. On three visits of an hour
or so in August I only saw them twice. I believe they should be gettable
there every time if you are prepared to put a bit of effort in- I don't know
of anywhere else where they can be reliably found at any time of day. (That
is unless, someone has a male singing in their backyard every morning.)
As to the Barbary Dove, I have serious doubts that there is any evidence to
show that any birds seen in the Melbourne area are legitimately tickable.
Some people do tick them, and that is up to them, but I don't think there is
a proven population that has been self-sustaining for more than ten years,
and therefore could be considered wild. As far as I understand, the only
population that satisfies this criteria is that in Adelaide, (the Alice
Springs population having been eliminated a few years back.) from what I
understand from Michael Norris' previous posts on this issue, even the
Bayside birds may not be a self-sustaining population but a series of
releases/escapees possibly from the same aviary.
I certainly don't count any of the Barbary Doves I have seen in Melbourne
(three sightings in twenty years) and bizarrely enough it is one of the few
birds in mainland Australia I still don't have on my list.
Having said all that, I also reckon that while an unusual range extension, I
have no problem with accepting that the Painted Finches north of Jerilderie
are genuine wild birds as the area they are in is pretty dry and quite a
long way from the any nearby towns. They could be escapees but this seems to
be me the more unlikely scenario. I hope if they are wild birds they like
the area and hang around because I'll be heading that way in November on my
way to the Australian Birdfair at Leeton.
Sorry for rambling on about such a trivial topic, feel free to resume your
debate about social networking sites!
Sean Dooley
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of russ lamb
Sent: Tuesday, 2 September 2008 9:57 AM
To:
Subject: RFI: Song Thrush & Barbary Dove, Melbourne
I will be in Melbourne from Fri 5th to Mon 15th Sept(attempting Port Fairy
pelagic) and would appreciate any current, specific info for locating Song
Thrush and Barbary Dove.
Have trawled archives and extracted info about sites like RBG,
Northcote, and Brighton but you can't beat up-to-date info.,particularly on
the dove.
Please reply off-line.
Russ Lamb, Maleny,SEQ
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