Early this morning I heard (and subsequently saw) an immature Eastern
Whipbird in the undergrowth of our back garden in Ryde, inner suburban
Sydney.
This may not sound very impressive, but it is the first record for our
garden in the 4.5 years that we have lived here. We are about 400 m upslope
from Buffalo Creek which has a riparian corridor and where Eastern Whipbirds
are heard most days. Our road is perpendicular to the creek and there are 10
suburban properties and one road between us and the creek. It was not until
I detected the whipbird that I realized that we and our neighbours have
created a green corridor along the rear parts of our properties, comprising
dense bushes and shrubbery. This corridor has been created by chance, rather
than by design, but it nevertheless provides habitat for the dispersal of
birds that prefer dense undergrowth.
I am particularly pleased with this record because when we bought our house
the back garden was just a buffalo grass lawn. Over the last 4.5 years we've
slowly converted it to a garden with mostly native bushes and shrubs. The
back garden next door to us, through which the whipbird is likely to have
travelled, is badly neglected and is totally overgrown with woody and
succulent weeds, much to our chagrin.
It would be nice if we had White-browed Scrubwrens and Brown Thornbills,
both of which occur along Buffalo Creek, come into our garden in the future.
Stephen Ambrose
Ryde, NSW
===============================
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:
===============================
|
