birding-aus

Cox Scrub

To:
Subject: Cox Scrub
From: Ian Reid <>
Date: Sun, 05 May 2013 21:26:31 +0930

I have just returned from a late afternoon visit to Cox Scrub on the Fleurieu Peninsula an hour from Adelaide. This was flagged by others as the site most likely to produce CRHW as per my request from last week (thanks to all who replied) -- though I didn't harbour any expectations of finding one at that time of day or at this time of year, it was more a recce since I had never been before.

I was horrified to find that what looked like about 2/3 of the entire area (or at least from what I could see on from the eastern boundary) has been burnt out. It is very recent, probably in the last week -- the smell of charcoal is still in the air. Though most of the ground is now cold, in one or two places I could see smoking logs, and in one place there were still small flames. I covered them with sand as best I could and hope it rains tonight, though it looks like the damage has been done.

The burnt area goes from the firebreak adjacent to the Asbourne Rd up the hill as far as I walked (not quite to the top of the hill), and much of the way south. There is an unburnt area in the SE corner. The understory is completely gone in all but a few isolated pacthes.

The birds I did see well were all concentrated in the area close to the carpark where there was less damage: dozens of New Holland and Brown Honeyeaters, Several Red-rumped Parrots, Musk and Purple-crown Lorikeets, Grey Shrike-thrush, and a few parties of Superb Fairywren.

Probably bad news for the dense heath dwellers though :-(.

regards, Ian

--
Prof. Ian Reid
School of Computer Science
University of Adelaide
Adelaide, 5005
ph: +61 (08) 83132135
www: http://cs.adelaide.edu.au

===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU