Re Superb Fairy-wrens and habitat; I was always amazed how common
these birds were in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs with hardly a shrub or
or lawn in sight. Underwood St, and nearby streets in busy
Paddington, have terraced houses with microscopic, paved front yards,
measuring only a couple of paces from the footpath to the front door
and yet SF-ws can be found in the street. There is very little
vegetation, perhaps a few isolated eucs. and a few, generally exotic,
shrubs. The area around the bare, asphalt playgrounds of Bondi Public
School often had a group of F-ws. These are not isolated instances.
Most of the other small species have disappeared from these urban
areas making the presence of these birds even more remarkable.
Here in the leafy northern suburbs, with apparently plenty of
suitable habitat, there are large areas where SF-ws are rarely
sighted. By contrast, Variegated F-ws are common in the native
bushland reserves of Sydney's north, a habitat where SF-ws are less
frequently seen.
The lack of a canopy and extensive lawns in much of the Eastern
Suburbs has possibly not allowed the Noisy Miners and Currawongs to
dominate the landscape (airscape???) and to drive away the
Fairy-wrens, as has probably happened in much of northern Sydney.
In Sydney, Superb Fairy-wrens seem to prefer altered habitat,
providing they can survive attacks from larger, more aggressive
species and they also favour wetlands especially those with reeds and
nearby mown grass.
A visit to Google Earth will show what I mean about Underwood St,
Paddington or Bondi School at the end of Glasgow Avenue where it
meets Gould St.
Andy
Appended is the abstract of just-published Emu paper looking at habitats
used by Superb Fairy-wrens in and near suburban Wollongong.
Interesting as it give some insight as to possible reasons why Superb
Fairy-wrens are almost absent from large parts of the attractive and
expensive suburbs on Sydney's north shore but are fairly common through
Sydney's densely populated inner west right into the CBD. I don't know
if they are still there, but last year there were wrens near King Street
Wharf in the city, not far from the stern of the ship in the aerial
image here:
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&ie=UTF8&ll=-33.86548,151.201937&spn=0.003256,0.004495&t=h&z=18
Extremely disturbed habitat but Superb Fairy-wrens can exploit it
perhaps due to adaptions to exploit natural disturbance (fire, storm,
flood) and edge effects - but they have trouble exploiting greener
suburbs to the north.
Andrew
The vegetation requirements of Superb Fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus)
in non-urban edge and urbanised habitats
Holly Parsons A , C , Kristine French A and Richard E. Major B
A Institute for Conservation Biology and Law, School of Biological
Sciences, University of Wollongong, Northfields Ave, Wollongong, NSW
2520, Australia.
B Terrestrial Ecology, Australian Museum, 6 College St, Sydney, NSW
2010, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email:
Abstract
Urbanisation has created an environment with a broad spectrum of habitats
of differing quality for birds. Understanding habitat characteristics is
necessary for effective conservation of species in urban environments. We
investigated the vegetation requirements of a small, shrub-nesting,
Australian bird, the Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus), and the
relative quality of urban habitats in the Illawarra region of New South
Wales. Vegetation was assessed in three different habitats: suburban
sites within Superb Fairy-wren territories (n = 20 sites), suburban sites
where Fairy-wrens were absent (n = 20), and rural-woodland edge in which
Fairy-wrens were present (n = 17). This third habitat represents a habitat
assumed to be the best possible habitat for this species within the
landscape. We analysed structure and floristics of the vegetation. The
three habitats were significantly different from each other both in
vegetation structure and floristic composition. While there was some
variability in habitat selection in suburban areas, Superb Fairy-wrens
were largely restricted to areas that have a dense layer of native shrubs
surrounding grassy areas. They were absent from suburban sites where there
were either few shrubs in total or sites with exotic shrubs, regardless of
abundance. It was predicted that non-suburban habitats (habitat located
on the rural-remnant edge) would be of a higher quality than suburban
habitats (habitat within residential housing) owing to a prevalence of
native vegetation. However, these sites were dominated by a single exotic
species, Lantana (Lantana camara). Despite this plant replacing native
vegetation, it was an important habitat feature. Either this plant or
native shrubs must be available for this species to colonise a site.
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
