birding-aus

Mallee Emu-wren at Wyperfeld

To: "martin cachard" <>, "Tim Dolby" <>, <>
Subject: Mallee Emu-wren at Wyperfeld
From: "Ross Macfarlane" <>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 17:19:55 +1000
Folks, this is tremendous news and potentially a really significant boost to the survival chances of the Mallee emu-wren, as when Sarah Brown completed her PhD a few years ago she was unable to locate any populations outside of the Murray-Sunset / Hattah-Kulkyne complex, as it was generally believed the populations in Ngarkat had been decimated by the fires in the early 2000s. Since she also found they had very poor rates of dispersal, to find a population here really is wonderful news as just maybe a small cryptic population has been hanging on in a place no one had expected to find them.

I would just like to add though: can we please not have a mad rush of twitchers going looking for them in this place, at least and until someone has been able to have a quiet look and see how many there are and how viable this population is? This is one of our most vulnerable bird species, as the MS/HK population is the last stronghold, and it could be wiped out overnight by a big fire in the wrong place. This new population has the chance to change the picture for this species' survival, so please can we not muck it up until we know how safe it is in this new location...

Yours in stipiturid sincerity,
Ross Macfarlane

-----Original Message----- From: martin cachard
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 8:47 AM
To: Tim Dolby ; 
Subject: Mallee Emu-wren at Wyperfeld

hey Tim,
that's such wonderful news!!

many moons ago I stumbled upon a family party of Mallee Emu-Wrens at Big Billy Bore, further west in the northern Big Desert in the early 1980's... I was in the area looking for Red-lored Whistlers. the habitat was very thick Broombrush-heath with very sparse small patches of spinifex, so it seems they don't mind sparse spinifex as a habitat preference... i'm not sure how long it's been since they have been recorded in the Big Desert.

cheers,
martin cachard,
cairns



From: 
To: 
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 06:38:17 +0000
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Mallee Emu-wren at Wyperfeld

Hi all,

If anyone's heading to Wyperfeld National Park (Vic), Matthew Crawford has just photographed a family of Mallee Emu-wren along the Discovery Walk, see http://www.eremaea.com. Remarkably he found the birds in an area of open tea-tree woodland - although there are some stands of triodia nearby, he was some distance from significant area of triodia. Despite extensive previous surveys of Wyperfeld there's have been very reports of Mallee Emu-wren, and their presence along the Discovery Walk seems to me to be new and remarkable. In fact when I first heard about it I’d dismissed as miss-ID’d eclipsed Splendid or Variegated Fairy-wren. So I’m currently eating humble pie! Why are they there now? Migration, population expansion, or perhaps displacement due to fires?

Cheers,

Tim



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