How I found out the bowerbirds had returned was actually a little embarrassing.
I'd left Brisbane at 4.30am without breakfast (just a bottle of iced coffee
and a few corn chips along the way), picked up birding guests from the Gold
Coast and headed up to O'Reilly's. I'd been there and to Binna Burra 2 weeks
ago and seen one female regent at OR and 3 satins at BB, but not the numbers
you'd expect in the warmer months. I'd explained this to my guests and -
because I was hungry - grabbed a big handful of corn chips to chew on my way
around the treetop walk. Suddenly a male regent bowerbird flew towards the
lodge, and in excitement I called my guests and raced over there. Suddenly
there were three regent bowerbirds on my arm and flying off with my chips. A
staff member came out and started feeding them with sultanas, and a couple of
extra birds landed on me and grabbed at my chips. I got a lecture on not
feeding inappropriate foods. I'm not sure he believed me when I said
it was accidental, and i didn't really get a chance to explain that I always
warn our guests of this, have written papers and given several talks on the
same topic and wrote the feeding policy for the WTA website.
Anyway, the satins and regents are back in some numbers now at O'R, having
hardly seen any over winter. Only a few seem to have arrived at BB so far, but
it shoudn't be long before we're seeing them regularly there as well
Ronda Green, BSc(Hons) PhD
Araucaria Ecotours
http://www.learnaboutwildlife.com
http://www.facebook.com/AraucariaEcotours
Chair Wildlife Tourism Australia: http://wildlifetourism.org.au
Chair Scenic Rim Wildlife: http://scenicrim.wildlife.org.au/
Honorary research fellow Griffith University
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